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  A current began pulling loose items toward the broken window, and Mia could feel the additional resistance as she scampered toward the row of seats. She bent at the waist and drove forward with her legs, reaching the back row of seats, and then wrapping the seatbelt around her right wrist for added restraint.

  The whistling of the air through the window obscured the sound of any gunshots, so Mia didn’t know if Cheeto had continued to fire. She looked toward the back of the plane and saw all of the totes scattered on top of the pallets of gold bars, and held back from the rushing current by nothing but the strained cargo net. If the net gave way, an avalanche of totes promised to pile against the sidewall, which might cutoff the current.

  Mia couldn’t see Cheeto behind the mass of totes, and she hoped that something heavy had fallen on him. But her hopes were dashed as he emerged from behind the pile of totes carrying a pallet above his head. Mia watched as the monster propped the pallet against the sidewall, and then broke it in half with a thunderous kick. Cheeto manhandled the shattered pallet, ripping off a piece of plywood that had been connected to the top of it. He stumbled through the opening in the cargo net, and dragged the plywood behind him with one hand, bracing himself on the sidewall with the other. As he approached the window he held on to the plywood with both hands and guided it to the missing window, but as he came within five feet, the current sucked it out of his hands. Pure chance threw the plywood flat against the window, cutting off the flow of air, and quieting the whistle.

  Cheeto collapsed to the ground, relieved of the strain of trying not to get sucked out of the plane. Mia hoped he’d decide to sit and relax the rest of the flight, but didn’t expect him to do so. She ducked in front of the back row of seats and waited for him to find her. She considered attacking his vulnerability, but didn’t want to engage him in a wide-open space.

  As she waited for Cheeto to approach, a loud, explosive boom rocked the plane, which tilted nose down, and shook so much that Mia thought it might come apart. The sudden dive propelled Cheeto forward, where he crashed into the cockpit door. Mia decided to pounce. She unwrapped the seatbelt from her wrist, and with the sharp downward angle of the plane, she slammed into the cockpit wall and came to rest, her body flat on the wall, which had become the floor as the plane dove. Cheeto struggled against gravity and crawled close enough to her to deliver a sustained—if chaotic—series of punches to her ribs. Mia kicked her feet at him as she crawled away, hoping to establish some space between her and Cheeto. He rolled toward her, like a child going down a grassy hill. But before he could reach her, the plane pulled out of its dive, leveled for a few seconds, and then began a sharp, almost vertical, ascent.

  As the plane climbed, Mia fell from the floor onto the first row of seats, and Cheeto fell into the seat next to her. She maneuvered away from him, but he hit her with a quick backhand to the nose that startled her, before getting on top of her, pinning her with his hands, and burying his knees into her chest. The big man squeezed Mia’s neck, and she could feel oxygen deprivation in her brain. The slow march to unconsciousness accompanied the sharp pain he inflicted with his razor-like nails that tore at her flesh as he choked her. That was the exact moment that she smelled Cheetos for the first time. She didn’t want artificial snacks to be her last conscious thought, so she decided to fight back.

  She dug the fingernail from her index finger into the inside corner of his left eye and then scraped it across the top of his eye, under the eyelid, and to the other side. He yelped with pain, and a pool of blood formed in his eye. He didn’t let go of her neck though, and as her field of vision grew narrower from the lack of oxygen, she felt a drop of blood land on her forehead. She reached up to bury her finger in his other eye, but before she made contact, the plane again changed trajectory and went back into a dive. Cheeto fell off of her, back toward the cockpit wall again, and Mia fell on top of him. She scurried away as Cheeto writhed on the floor, trying to catch his breath.

  The plane’s violent changes in orientation shimmied a plastic tote around the cargo net, and it fell toward the sidewall, where it knocked loose the plywood. The intense current returned, and Mia felt the air suck out of her lungs. She hoped for a less-intense current on the opposite side of the plane, so she began crawling on her knees, toward Cheeto, over him, and past him to the other side of the plane.

  Just as she reached the opposite sidewall, the plane leveled once again.

  With the lack of oxygen from Cheeto’s chokehold combined with the decreased air pressure in the cabin, Mia felt lightheaded. She had to close off the window.

  She got to her feet and stumbled back across the cabin, picked up the plywood, and fought her way against the wind toward the open window. The intensity of the current threatened to sweep her off of her feet. She had just widened her stance when she felt a sharp blow to the back of her head. She fell to one knee just as Cheeto landed a second blow, this one to the temple. As she fell all the way to the floor, she had a sudden revelation. She rolled onto her back, kicked Cheeto in the groin, and as he doubled over in pain, she got to her feet, grabbed him by the shirt and the shoulders, and hurled him toward the missing window. It happened so fast that he had no chance to stop himself. Instead his face went through the open window, and despite the narrowness of the window and the width of his body, the tremendous outflow of air worked with the momentum of the yawing plane and shuttled him through the opening.

  His foot caught on the aluminum rail that ran along the bottom of the sidewall. Mia fell to her knees and heard his body battering the exterior of the plane, his wedged foot the only thing keeping him onboard. He tried kicking his feet, but he could do nothing. Even if she had any inclination to help, she could not have exerted enough force to drag him back into plane. But since he’d tried to kill her, she did the only thing that made sense: She worked his foot free of the railing. After a moment of inertia, the pressure from inside the cabin became too great, and Cheeto disappeared out the window.

  The whipping airflow resumed without him there to act as a cork.

  3

  Chapter 3

  Mia struggled to place the plywood over the missing window, which had become larger thanks to Cheeto’s gargantuan size. The plywood just covered it, much to Mia’s delight, as she collapsed to the floor in relief.

  Minutes later, as she stood up, the plan dove again, this time not much more angled than a controlled landing. Before she could even get into the cockpit to talk to the pilot and advise him to land the plane, he appeared at the cockpit door.

  He looked at Mia, and then toward the missing window, and then toward the mess at the back of the plane. Mia shook her head. She put up her hands to indicate that she meant him no harm. She’d never landed a plane before so she had no intention of bothering him. She needed him to remain in one piece if she wanted to land rather than crash. He stared at the floor and walked toward her, trying to ignore her. She grabbed his arm.

  “They’re all dead,” she said. “It’s just me and you.” A loud explosion from the wing interrupted her. The pilot ducked and covered his head with his hands. “We need to land this thing.”

  “Not possible,” the pilot said. “It’s coming apart. I’m ditching it.”

  “Ditching it?” Mia asked. “Golly fuck. Does that mean what I think it means?”

  The pilot pointed to his back and Mia noticed the parachute for the first time.

  “Perfect,” she said. “More in the cockpit?” She started walking past him, and he didn’t stop her. When she got to the cockpit door she turned and saw him walking toward the rear door, the same door through which she’d boarded. Mia ransacked the cockpit looking for another parachute, but found nothing. Back in the cabin she saw the pilot pulling down on the lever on the rear door. He grabbed it with both hands and leaned toward the floor, employing all of his body weight.

  Mia called to him, but he either ignored her or he couldn’t hear her because of the horrendous whirring that consumed the entire aircra
ft. He continued to pull on the lever, so she tried to walk toward him. The plane jerked starboard, throwing her to the floor, and then, as it continued to bank, she slid along the floor, toward the blown-out window. She scrambled against gravity, grabbing hold of the aluminum channel in the floor to which the rows of seats had been attached, and pulled her body away from the sidewall. The wind whipped through the cabin, with Mia in the middle of the air stream. If she let go, the current would suck her out of the airplane, into the night air. She held on and shimmied her way along the channel, hand-over-hand, trying to escape the current.

  The pilot had lost his balance, and now kneeled on the door he’d been trying to open. If the latch gave way he’d fall out without jumping.

  Once safely away from the broken window, Mia let go of the channel and slid along the floor of the plane, coming to rest on the sidewall, each foot on an unbroken window.

  She stumbled along the sidewall of the plane, toward the pilot. He saw her coming and picked up a gold bar that had come loose from the pallet. He heaved the gold bar at Mia, but it fell several feet short. While he looked around for something else to throw, Mia careened along the floor and sidewall of the plane. With the pilot less then ten feet away and still looking for something else to throw at Mia, a thunderous knocking noise began from the other side of the plane. They both turned their attention toward the opposite wing just in time to see a large piece of material lift from the wing and disappear. Regardless of the piece’s actual function, when it flew off the wing of the plane it had the sudden effect of causing a severe reversal of the starboard-leaning bank of the plane. It threw Mia and the pilot to the ground, and although on a general downward trajectory, the plane more or less leveled off compared to its previous steep decline.

  The pilot turned all of his attention toward the door, and this time as soon as he pulled down on the lever with all of his weight, the lever gave, and he pushed the door open. A terrific whoosh of air passed through the cabin as the pilot hung on to a metal handle next to the door. He looked at Mia, turned his back toward the opening, and fell into the blackness.

  Sure that she must have overlooked a parachute, Mia returned to the cockpit and rummaged through it again. But with few places to hide in a cockpit, it became clear that no other chute existed. In the cabin, Mia searched the flight attendant’s seating area just behind the cockpit, and found no chute there, either.

  With the pilot gone, the plane coming apart, and no other parachute available, Mia had no choice but to improvise. She ran to the back of the plane to look for anything that could save her. The intense whistling wind provided a constant reminder of the speed at which the damaged airplane was falling from the sky. She had no idea how close the ground was, but since she hadn’t frozen or died from a lack of oxygen, she knew it couldn’t be far. Impact could occur at any second. She ran to the intact side of the plane and past the cargo net to where Little Guy’s body lay tangled and contorted in a growing river of blood. She grabbed the net to pull herself up onto a pallet, when inspiration struck.

  In the back of the plane, Mia had noticed a roll of plastic wrap at least three feet wide. She crawled over two pallets and picked up the roll. She lifted it up and dragged it back over the pallets, and as she stood in Little Guy’s blood, she brainstormed an alternative. Sometimes a bad idea is the only idea that appears, and in those instances, even a bad idea can save the day.

  She secured the cargo net to both sidewalls, and then disconnected it from the ceiling and the floor. She tied the loose end of the plastic wrap to the bottom of the cargo net, and then lifted it up and over the net, throwing it to the floor, and then dragging it under the net, before repeating the process. Each time it passed below the net she pulled it tight to create a smooth layer on top of the foundation provided by the cargo net. Mia repeated the process for the entire length of the cargo net, and then returned to the other end, wrapping the net a second time, before completing the length there and back again. She expected the plane to impact as she worked.

  After disconnecting both ends of the cargo net from the sidewalls of the plane, she dragged the plastic-wrapped net to the middle of the airplane, and hoped that the plane didn’t begin to nosedive, causing the cargo to slide toward the front of the plane, crushing her since no cargo net would have prevented it.

  She gathered each of the four corners of the net toward the center, and stuck each of her arms and legs through holes in the net that weren’t covered in plastic, which had the effect of turning the net into a sort of huge backpack. It also began to act as a sail, and carried her toward the open door in the back of the plane. She fell to her knees, which increased resistance, and then gave the sail a powerful tug, and pulled it to the floor. As the stream of air passed over it, the wind held it down, which prevented the sail from sending her out the door.

  “Time to get action,” Mia thought.

  She crouched low to the floor and scuttled toward the door. The ferocity of the wind surprised her, and she worried that its sheer force would disintegrate her eardrums. She teetered at the edge of the plane, a wide-open door in front of her, and knew that she had to jump. She had to let the makeshift chute do whatever it would do.

  She dragged the plastic-wrapped net close behind her and gave one glance in a half-hearted attempt to make sure it wasn’t tangled or broken. Nothing looked unusual—except for using a cargo net and plastic wrap as a parachute—so she bent her knees and pushed as hard away from the edge of the plane as her legs would allow.

  Near-silence enveloped her in seconds. The din of the airplane’s engines lessened, and soon quieted. Only the gentle whipping of wind surrounding plastic wrap pierced the stillness. She expected to hear the roaring wind associated with a 150 mile-per-hour free fall, so the tranquility overwhelmed her.

  Her parachute worked.

  She looked toward the ground and could see nothing. Everything looked completely black, and although she tried to discern shapes, or light, or anything that would indicate her distance from the ground, she saw only dark. Up in the sky, stars created a billion points of light whose illumination didn’t reach the ground, no matter how brilliantly they decorated the sky.

  Because she couldn’t see anything, and she had no idea where she was or how close to the ground she was, she made no attempt to steer. She had been rather inept at steering in the few times that she’d used a real parachute, so to think she’d do any better with a makeshift chute was wishful thinking, but it didn’t matter anyway.

  She’d just begun to wonder whether she might be able to steer by moving an arm or leg in a certain direction when she felt her feet hit the water. It felt warm, but shocking, and when her chute landed on top of her, she worried that the heavy, wet plastic might suffocate her. With her arms and legs wrapped through the net, she knew if she didn’t work herself free, then she risked drowning. But she got loose, gathered her chute into a large ball, and breathed a sigh of relief when it floated.

  She hugged part of it, and let the waves move her, content with being alive.

  4

  Chapter 4

  Hours later the gentle gliding of a boat’s wake moved Mia up and down just enough to rouse her from the shallow sleep she’d embraced. One would think that floating in the middle of the ocean on a balled up cargo net wrapped in plastic would unnerve a person so much that it would be difficult to fall asleep, but Mia managed. After the exhilaration of survival wore off, exhaustion consumed her. The waves in the middle of the ocean are rather calm at night, and she settled into a rhythmic pattern that not only permitted sleep, but endorsed it. With her chest resting on the spherical life raft, she dozed off.

  When the boat’s wake altered the repetitious pattern of the waves, she lifted her head and looked around. The bright morning sun glared off the surface of the water, and pained her eyes. Through squinted eyes she followed the wake back to its source and found a small cruiser, not large enough to belong to a navy, but not small enough to be privately owned. It mov
ed quickly and she thought it would pass out of sight without noticing her, but as she lifted her right arm to wave and yell at it, she noticed that it had begun to veer to the right. A minute later it completed its half loop and traveled toward her. The initial ecstasy over being spotted wore off as she worried who might be inside the boat, and what they might do after they rescued her. If she hadn’t been stuck in the middle of the ocean she would have found a place to hide. Her predicament didn’t allow for that though, so she had no choice but to wait for them.

  As the ship approached, a man appeared on the deck with a life preserver. He walked toward the bow of the ship and waved his arms. His throw landed the preserver within ten feet of Mia, and she kicked toward it, while continuing to hold on to her sphere. When she reached the preserver she let go of the sphere. The man gave the preserver two quick tugs to make sure she had a good grip, and then he started to pull it toward the boat.

  With the boat just in front of Mia, two more men appeared on deck and descended down a ladder toward the water line. As she approached the boat, each man grabbed one of her arms and pulled her up onto the ladder, and then onto the deck.

  “Easy. Just take it easy. Lie down on your back.”

  English. The men looked like Americans, but what does an American look like? Most of the time, unless they’re wearing the military uniform of another country, Mia assumed everyone she encountered was an American, which has caused plenty of trouble in her life, but she continued to make that assumption.

  “You’re Americans?” she asked, seeking confirmation of the obvious.

  “Never mind that,” the man said. “We’re not the interesting people here. You’re the interesting person. What are you doing in the middle of the ocean?”