Chapter 8 - THIRTY-FIVE THOUSAND FEET
“Flight 312, maintain manual control and do not accept automated reversion prompts.”
Leela's voice remained steady.
Around her, the abandoned simulator basement had become an emergency operations center.
Federal agents.
Skycross engineers.
Jackson.
Jenna.
Martin Vale connected remotely.
Dozens of people speaking at once.
But Leela heard only the captain breathing through the SATCOM link.
“Dr. Voss, we've lost two primary displays.”
“Standby attitude?”
“Available.”
“Airspeed?”
“Disagreement.”
“Engine parameters?”
“Stable.”
“Good. Trust what physics agrees on.”
Jackson looked at her.
That sentence sounded almost too simple.
But cockpit emergencies often came down to exactly that.
Find the instruments that agree with reality.
Ignore the ones that do not.
Leela asked:
“Are you in visual conditions?”
“Negative. Cloud layer.”
“How far to clear air?”
“Unknown.”
Jenna checked weather.
“Twenty miles east.”
Leela relayed heading guidance from independent tracking.
The aircraft turned.
Then the warning changed.
Aileron authority reduced.
Jackson's face went pale.
“Can Mercer actually control surfaces?”
“No.”
Leela stared at the architecture.
“Not directly.”
“That did not sound reassuring.”
“He can corrupt the computers' understanding of what commands are valid.”
“Which can affect surfaces.”
“Yes.”
Jackson swore.
Jenna looked at Leela.
“What would Sentinel do?”
“Full implementation?”
“Yes.”
“Isolate the compromised control computer and force analog fallback.”
“Does this aircraft have full implementation?”
Leela already knew.
“No.”
Skycross had never purchased Sentinel.
They had installed fragments of an evaluation environment into test infrastructure.
Then allowed those fragments to survive inside operational systems.
Richard Cole's obsession with saving money had created a patchwork.
Leela felt rage.
Later.
If they survived.
“Captain, I need you to disconnect autopilot and autothrottle.”
“Done.”
“Flight-control mode?”
“Alternate.”
“Good.”
A warning sounded through the cockpit microphone.
Passengers could be heard screaming.
The captain breathed.
“We're descending.”
“How fast?”
“Six hundred feet per minute.”
“Intentional?”
“No.”
Leela looked at control status.
False trim command.
“There.”
She pointed.
Martin Vale saw it.
“Horizontal stabilizer request.”
Jackson went cold.
“Can they stop it?”
Leela pressed the microphone.
“Captain, trim manually opposite the command.”
“Trying.”
“Do not chase airspeed.”
The aircraft descended through 33,000 feet.
Jenna stood beside Leela watching code.
“What can I do?”
Leela almost said nothing.
Old instinct.
Do it herself.
Trust nobody.
Then she stopped.
“Trace the maintenance gateway.”
Jenna nodded.
No argument.
No ego.
Just work.
For the first time since they were children, the sisters stood on the same side of something.
Jackson watched them.
He realized how much history had been wasted because adults had taught two girls to measure themselves against each other.
Jenna suddenly pointed.
“Found a persistent channel.”
Leela leaned over.
Mercer's exploit remained active through a cabin entertainment maintenance bridge.
“Impossible.”
“Apparently not.”
Jackson frowned.
“Cabin entertainment?”
Leela nodded.
“Modern aircraft systems are segmented. They're supposed to be isolated.”
“Supposed to be.”
“Yes.”
Jenna looked at her.
“If we kill power to the cabin network?”
“We might cut his command path.”
“From the cockpit?”
“Not fully.”
Jackson understood.
“Cabin electrical panel.”
Leela looked at him.
“On this configuration, aft service bay.”
He was already moving toward the communications console.
“Tell the lead flight attendant.”
Leela caught his arm.
“No.”
“What?”
“Not yet.”
“If we power it down—”
“If we kill the wrong bus while they're already degraded, we could lose the SATCOM link too.”
Jackson stopped.
Leela calculated.
“Captain, can you see outside?”
The answer came seconds later.
“Breaking through cloud.”
Altitude 30,800.
“Good. Independent visual horizon?”
“Yes.”
“Then we can sacrifice more digital support.”
The captain understood.
“Do it.”
Leela contacted the lead flight attendant through cabin interphone routing restored by Martin.
A woman answered.
“This is Cara.”
“Cara, I need you to reach the aft electrical service panel.”
“What am I looking for?”
Leela described the exact breakers.
Cara hesitated.
“Those are maintenance only.”
“I know.”
“I'm not authorized.”
Leela almost laughed.
“Neither was I yesterday.”
Jackson looked at her.
“Cara, this is Captain Jackson Cole. Follow Dr. Voss's instructions.”
A pause.
Then:
“Understood.”
Leela directed her.
Breaker one.
Two.
Hold.
Three.
The maintenance channel disappeared.
Everyone in the basement exhaled.
Then Flight 312's control degradation stopped worsening.
Leela watched the data.
“Captain?”
“Aircraft feels better.”
Jackson closed his eyes.
Jenna smiled.
Then Leela saw one final command queued locally.
Not remote.
Already onboard.
A timed package.
“Wait.”
Jenna looked.
“What?”
Leela's stomach dropped.
The local package targeted flight-management restart at 10,000 feet.
Exactly when the crew would be busiest preparing to land.
Mercer had planned layers.
If the remote attack failed, the aircraft would sabotage itself again during approach.
Leela pressed the microphone.
“Do not descend below twelve thousand.”
The captain paused.
“Why?”
“Secondary payload.”
Jenna whispered:
“How do we remove it?”
“We can't remotely.”
Jackson stared.
“Then what?”
Leela thought.
The package lived in volatile memory.
A restart of one specific maintenance processor would clear it.
But restarting that processor could affect other systems temporarily.
Leela asked:
“Captain, do you have clear air?”
“Yes.”
“Stable?”
“Yes.”
“Then we're going to reset the maintenance computer.”
Silence.
“That isn't in any checklist.”
“No.”
“What happens?”
“Best case? The payload disappears.”
“And worst case?”
Leela looked at Jackson.
He heard it in her silence.
The captain said:
“Dr. Voss.”
Leela answered honestly.
“You could lose additional nonessential systems for several minutes.”
“Could we lose controls?”
“Unlikely.”
“Unlikely?”
“I won't lie to you.”
Long silence.
Then the captain said:
“Do it.”
Leela guided the reset.
The screen went blank.
Data froze.
Five seconds.
Ten.
Twenty.
Jackson whispered:
“Come on.”
Thirty.
Then systems repopulated.
Local malicious package:
GONE.
Jenna cried out.
Leela pressed the microphone.
“Flight 312?”
The captain laughed breathlessly.
“We're still here.”
The room erupted.
Not celebration.
Not yet.
But hope.
Flight 312 diverted to Wichita.
At 7,000 feet, stable.
At 3,000, runway in sight.
At touchdown, everyone in the basement watched independent tracking show the aircraft slow.
Safe.
Jackson sat down hard.
Jenna covered her face.
Leela simply stood there.
Exhausted.
Agent Chen approached.
“Dr. Voss.”
Leela looked at her.
“We found Mercer.”
“Where?”
“Upstairs.”
Everyone froze.
“What?”
Chen continued.
“He never left the building.”
Federal agents had discovered a hidden service room behind the old simulator bay.
Inside:
Servers.
Cloned Skycross credentials.
Financial records.
And Grant Mercer.
Alive.
In custody.
Jackson exhaled.
“It's over.”
Leela looked at him.
“No.”
He frowned.
Mercer had engineered the attacks.
But people inside Skycross had enabled him.
Grant Cole.
Richard's cover-up.
Jenna's credential negligence.
Management shortcuts.
The system was bigger than one angry man.
Then Agent Chen handed Leela a tablet.
“We also found this.”
A recorded video.
Grant Mercer sat before a camera.
Time stamp: two hours earlier.
His face was calm.
“If you're watching this, Leela Voss stopped the aircraft.”
Jackson stared.
Mercer continued.
“She always was the only person who could.”
Leela's expression hardened.
Then Mercer said something that changed everything.
“I never wanted Flight 312 to crash.”
Jenna whispered:
“What?”
“I wanted Skycross to be terrified enough to expose its own corruption.”
Richard Cole's name appeared on screen.
Then Grant Cole.
Then a list of maintenance contractors.
Mercer continued.
“But someone changed my code after the first flight.”
Leela's blood went cold.
“I built a controlled demonstration.”
He looked directly into the camera.
“Someone inside Skycross turned it into a weapon.”
Jackson stared at Leela.
Mercer finished:
“If you want the person who tried to kill those passengers, don't look at me.”
A photograph appeared.
Grant Cole.
Jackson's uncle.
And beside him—
May you like
Richard Cole.
Jackson's father.
