I carefully measured my surroundings. The business class section was right in front of the aircraft, just behind the cockpit. Since it was a mid-day flight, most of the seats were empty including the one next to me. On the other side in the same row, a man was fast asleep under a copy of Economic Times that covered his face. Two air hostesses touched upon their makeup and adjusted their wigs.
I couldn’t do anything but wait for now. I welcomed the break. I reclined my business class chair to the full extent and looked out of the window. A sea of white clouds extended to the horizon where it met the bluish-black sky. The sun’s rays bounced-off of clouds enhancing their radiance. Momentarily, my eyes fell my reflection in the glass of the window. I saw a different version of myself. Had someone seen me that morning, they’d have refused to believe that I was the same person. Money and power had ways to change a person… even if they are borrowed or stolen.
I wondered why RAW had chosen me for this power. Why not one of their better-trained soldiers? The ease with which the Masked Man had eliminated the small army of black-cat commandos was nothing but a small demonstration of RAW’s prowess. They were known to have advanced technologies, weapon systems and espionage networks at their disposal; and now as I know, the power of time travel. Then why me—a poor bicycle mechanic who couldn’t even fend for himself?
The only reason I could think for was that I was expendable. That made sense. No one would ask questions if a fifteen-year-old orphan went missing without a trace. And if by some miracle he survived and finished the job, he can be promptly eliminated to preserve their mission secrets. I wondered if they were following me even now to dispose me off at any moment they deemed fit. Impulsively, I glanced to my left; the man under the Economic Times was still fast asleep.
I pushed these thoughts out from my mind. I had a job to do and nothing could stop me from saving Shazia, not even the people who gave me this power. I’d not hesitate to fight them with everything I had if it comes to that. At any rate, stopping the bomb would mean saving Shazia from the riots.
It was air-hostess’s sing-songy voice that brought my attention back. Draped in her airlines’ uniform – a velvet blue skirt & a white shirt, she flaunted a faux smile. With a tilted head and thick anglicized accent asked me what my ‘food preferences’ were. I stared at her in amusement trying to process her question. Till now, getting some food always used to be a matter of ‘if’ rather than ‘what’. She repeated her question, courtesy never escaping her. I replied something, and she handed me a large tray that was overflowing with food.
FlyHigh airlines, like many other, treated their Business class passengers considerably better with gourmet meals in china plates and fine metal cutlery while economy class passengers ate dry sandwiches on foils with flimsy plastic spoons. That seemingly minor detail would be a case-study for airline industry if I succeeded in my attempt. I quickly gobbled large chunks of whatever exotic stuff that was on the plate, as my neighbour eyed me with contempt and ate his portion using fork and knife.
At 12:10 PM, the co-pilot’s voice ringed from the PA systems. “Attention guests, we are facing some unexpected turbulence. Please go back to your seats and fasten your seat-belts for safety. Please close your tray-table and open your window-shades. We will try to minimize your discomfort, but this may lead to a minor delay in our arrival at Delhi. Apologies for your inconvenience.”
Now. This is where I diverge from what I did in the previous run. Though I always had the resort of reset, it did not lessen the gravity of what I was about to do.
I took the unused fork from the plate and pocketed it – the sole reason I had travelled Business class. Shortly, the air-hostess hurriedly cleared the plates and drew the curtains back that separated the business and economy class. I waited for her to go back to her crew seat near the aircraft doors and buckling herself up, before putting my plan into action. Then, I took a deep breath and stood up with metal fork behind my back. The air-hostess immediately unbuckled herself and shouted from her seat, ““Sir, please go back to your seat immediately, the seat belt light is on.”
“Ma’am, I just need to use the bathroom,” I said, stepping closer to her in the aisle.
“Sorry sir, I can’t allow you,” she said, as she frantically waved me to sit down. “Seat belt sign is on,” she iterated louder while making her way towards me, trying to balance herself against the sudden jerks as the plane wavered against the strong winds. She tried to get hold of an elbow-rest to steady herself as the plane shook violently. But before she could gain her proper footing, I grabbed her hands and pulled her towards me. With one hand, I clutched her wrists tightly and put the fork on her throat with the other. She shrieked and wriggled like a fish trying to break free of my grip.
The other air-hostess, who had served me my food, stood alarmed on the other side of the aisle with terror on her face. I was perhaps more terrified than her, but I couldn’t let it show. I needed to be a monster today.
“W... What are you doing?” she said, stepping closer to the cockpit.
“What does it look like, my dear. I am hijacking this plane,” I said, adding menace into my voice.
“IF ANYONE MOVES, CONSIDER HER DEAD,” I shouted. There were shrieks and loud gasps. Women huddled their kids and there was audible weeping.
“You...” I pointed at the other air hostess. “Call the captain and ask him to open the cockpit door.”
She didn’t move.
“DO IT—” I said. “—Or she dies.”
It needed to be seen as a credible threat. I increased the pressure on the fork and a stream of thick red blood flowed down on the first air-hostess’s slender neck, bloodying her white shirt. It seemed ugly. She is going to be alright once I reset. I will find a better way. I told myself.
That show seemed to clear her mind. She nervously walked to the vestibule near the cockpit door, picked up the intercom and called the captain.
“C... captain. This is squawk seven-five-zero-zero,” she uttered the international code for hijacking. “Yes… Yes… No.”
“What is he saying? Don’t you try playing tricks on me,” I shouted at her. She was visibly trembling now.
“H… He is asking what you want,” she said.
“Goddamit. How many times do I have to say this? Move aside. I will talk to him directly.”
I dragged the captive hostess, who had stopped resisting by now, along the aisle. I snatched the receiver from the other hostess. Once I took the receiver, she scurried away from me.
I put the receiver to my ear and a trained voice cracked at the other end.
“What do you want?” he said.
“I want you to open the door,” I shouted.
“Negative,” he stated calmly. “That is not going to happen. You can tell me your demands and I’ll pass it on to ATC.”
He was clearly buying time. And time was one thing I didn’t have. I tried to evaluate other options. The other air hostess was shrinking in the wall niche with her hands behind her back. She wouldn’t be a problem. But I noted a few people craning their necks from their seats to understand the situation. A large guy seated in the first row was fidgeting in his seat. The initial shock was wearing off and a lone hijacker with a fork wasn’t a threat too overwhelming. I needed to take the control back.
“I WILL kill her.”
There was a long silence at the other end. With the corner of my eye, I noticed something eclipsing the sunlight coming through the glass eyepiece at the centre of the cockpit door. I realized that the pilot was peering to see the situation for himself. I dropped the receiver and turned so that I and the air hostess was clearly visible from inside. Blood continued to spew out from her neck as I deepened the wound with one tine. My hands were crimson red with her blood. I hardened my facial expressions.
The eye-piece cleared at once. I picked up the receiver that was hanging by the cord again with my fork-hand, trying to control the air hostess with the other who was now shaking violently.
The other air hostess had not moved from her corner; her hands still at her back.
“Don’t hurt her,” said the Pilot. “I am opening the door.”
With a faint click, the cockpit door came ajar. Triumphantly, I stepped towards it when things happened in quick succession. First, the air hostess managed to squeeze out of my grip which I had mistakenly let a little loose, underestimating her gall after getting two wounds. Then, a spray of liquid entered my eyes and a pain seared through as if someone was stuffing hot chili in my brain through my eyes. That’s what the other air hostess was hiding behind her back – a pepper spray. Stupid me.
As I convulsed... BAM! A mountain crashed at the back of my head. In my last-ditch attempt, I swung my fist and waved the fork blindly, but it only met empty air. I collapsed as the pilot and couple of passengers restrained me and punched and kicked from all the directions, finally pushing me to unconsciousness. My hijacking career had a short life.
When I regained my senses, it took me a while to understand where I was. The airplane’s cabin came into focus and so did the intense pain, that occupied every square inch of my body. I took long breaths as the plane’s pressurized air filled my lungs.
There was nothing more that I could do in this run. I have to go back again and tweak my plan, taking into account new information that I had gathered through this run. For now, I’d just reset and try ag… MY HANDS WERE TIED! I looked down and saw a thick rope that went criss-cross over my chest with my hands constrained tightly. I tried to force my hands out, but nothing budged.
This was bad.
I always had the last resort of resetting the day. It had been my consistent fall-back option, but I never planned on getting bundled up. If I couldn’t get free, then this will be my final attempt, which will end up becoming the ultimate reality. A reality which I was supposed to change in the first place.
“Don’t you dare try anything, mister,” said the muscular guy who I had seen earlier in the front row, eyeing me viciously. His bulging muscles showed off through his tight shirt. He popped his knuckle joints as couple of other guys joined behind him watching nervously.
Behind them, a small group of passengers huddled around the air-hostess thanking and praising her for her quick thinking. The young air hostess was surely enjoying the attention she was getting, reiterating the entire sequence animatedly. A doctor cleaned the other air-hostess’s neck wounds who had to bore the brunt of my attack. He applied the antiseptic and wrapped the bandages before cutting it with a scissor. A pungent smell filled my nostrils.
“What are you looking at, bastard?” said muscular guy, angrily.
“Don’t talk to him,” the air-hostess interrupted. “He will be handed over to the ATS once the plane lands.”
I ventured with the muscled guy. “Wufff fis duh aaiime?” I asked, through the rope stretched across my jaw.
“What?” he said, gruffly.
I repeated but the same sound came out of my mouth. He shook his head and signalled the other man. He walked up to me cautiously and slid the rope out from my mouth.
I spat out the jute strands and repeated my question for the third time. “What is the time?”
He pondered over the question if it was safe to answer it.
“It’s 1 ‘o clock,” he said, his eyes fixated on me. “We are about to reach Delhi.”
“Great. That’s just great.”
Suddenly, a deafening sound jolted everyone. It was as if the lightning had struck a few feet away, but I knew what it really was. That was the sound of my worst failure. Not only that I was late, but I was also in the wrong place. The plane shuddered uncontrollably, and captain’s voice boomed the cabin again. Despite his training and his conscious effort, his voice trembled in parts. “We are having an emergency. I repeat there is an emergency. Go back to your seats, put on your seat-belts and brace yourself in a crash position.”
Co-pilot exclaimed in the background, “What the heck is tha—” before the audio turned into a screeching static.
The cabin became a madhouse. There was screaming all around. People struggled to get back to their seats as the plane shook violently. The rickety air hostesses trudged through the aisle, trying to calm the passengers down. The muscled guy rushed to the seat next to me, his face now ghostly white.
By now, the plane was oscillating so much that one elderly passenger, having failed to lock his seat-belt on time, flung across the aisle five rows away. Loose baggage fell from the compartments and several lights and beeping noises went off simultaneously. Oxygen masks dropped from the roof.
The muscled guy had gone unconscious like many other passengers. I too felt an urge to close my eyes, but I pushed myself. If I went unconscious now, there wouldn’t be another chance. For me, or for anyone. I needed to be awake.
I looked about for some way to cut open the ropes, but there was nothing. I helplessly saw the front of the plane going higher and higher. As the plane climbed steeper, all the loose objects slid towards the back of the cabin and I felt pressed onto my back. A food trolley that was not stowed properly, rolled and banged at the back of the plane with a shatter. The medical box that the doctor had hurriedly tucked in the seat-pocket, fell towards me and hit me on my face.
I sensed the blasts of wind hitting the plane’s exposed belly, pushing its nose further upwards. As the nose angled steeper, my entire weight shifted on my back, pressing me hard against the chair. The ‘pepper-spray’ air hostess who had failed to reach her seat on time, held tightly onto a head rest, screaming all the while as her feet left the floor, and her body gradually paralleled to the aisle of the plane. The plane was vertical.
Before I could think anything else, a new source of noise attracted my attention. Beneath my feet, plane’s belly was getting hit by a hail of debris. The plane lurched dangerously as it got bombarded with sustained assault from below. My eyes widened as I spotted a crack that appeared on the roof of the plane. The crack rapidly extended to the floor between the cockpit and the cabin, and through the openings, the pressurized air in the cabin whooshed outside. The cracks became wider and wider as the plane continued to get hammered with more debris. And then, without a warning, the cockpit separated from the rest of the plane like a cork flying away from the bottle. The plane had split into two. Mid-air.
I watched the cockpit separating from the rest of the plane and getting smaller against the backdrop of clouds like a space-capsule pushing away from its rocket. For a few seconds, the cabin too continued upwards because of momentum, before stopping and then falling towards the ground like a stone. The plane was in a free-fall; I saw a droplet of sweat leaving my face dancing but staying right in front of my eyes before freezing over. Before long, I found myself levitating above my seat as if in zero-gravity. Unconscious bodies and loose objects floated around me. The box that had hit me had opened and its contents hovered about my face - bandages, a stethoscope and a scissor. A SCISSOR!
That’s it. There is still hope.
I stretched my neck and caught one end of the scissor with my mouth. Then, slowly and painfully, I folded myself till my face was touching my tied-up hands. With a lot of gymnastics, I managed to twist the scissor to get the sharp-end on the rope. I worked my entire body to get the scissor brushing on the rope, chipping away one strand at a time. All the while, the cabin was breaking into pieces and sharp metal shards spun around dangerously.
Suddenly, there was another big explosion that shattered the remaining plane into fragments. I was thrown outwards, in the open air with a sudden jerk; freezing wind blasted me from all sides. I bit hard on the scissor for my life depended on it. Tumbling through the air, just above me I spotted a huge engine spinning and crashing through the air like a ball of fire, gurgling a tower of thick black smoke. One of the propellers blasted out of the engine with the bright orange flash and... and it flew right at me. The propeller was on fire, its three enormous blades still rotating, making its way towards me. I tried changing my direction to get ou
t of the way. I twisted my body to get larger area against the wind but that didn’t help much. The propeller continued to rapidly close the gap. This was the end. That’d be how I die – I closed my eyes and braced myself for impact.
In the nick of time, a large metal section flew into the propeller and knocked it out of my way. I had survived. But it was too early to thank my Gods. I was still falling towards my certain death.
It was amidst all the smoke and fire, as I was spinning down when I saw it for the first time—the giant mushroom cloud. It was a spellbinding sight. The top of the nuclear cloud must’ve been at least tens of kilometres broad and it was growing. The monstrosity was such that Delhi’s high-rise buildings looked like matchsticks. The edge of the blast was growing and whatever came in its way bent like a blade of grass in the wind. In the backdrop, Yamuna river looked like a small snail trying to escape a raging monster. That’s what I was against. I felt hopelessly insignificant against the all-consuming mammoth.
I pulled myself together. I was now at only 5000 feet from the ground, passing through the lowest clouds; trees and buildings getting bigger. At the terminal velocity of 200km/hr, I barely had 30 seconds to avoid a certain death. I grabbed the scissor tightly and bobbed my head like a maniac. With every movement, the rope rubbed harshly through my wrist and a sharp pain shot through my arm.
3000 feet. My head began to spin because of mad shaking. I closed my eyes and continued.
2000 feet. There were only a few more strands lefts but the ground was coming closer. Fast. Plane’s debris were already hitting the ground. Mushroom cloud now towered above everything else.
1000 feet. I WAS FREE! I was seconds away from getting splattered when I brought my hands together. Just before the reset, a surprising thought crossed my mind.
I need a faster plane.
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123 Tomorrows Page 6