Unfriendly Skies

Special Agent Henry Darrow stood on the airfield, arms crossed, frowning as the guys in white suits - the technical forensics crew - swarmed inside and out, and over and around, the passenger plane.

Outwardly, it was an ordinary passenger jet, a Stratoglider, similar to an Airbus except it was larger and could fly higher. This particular Stratoglider - Flight 922 from Dallas to New York - was different in one very striking way, though. Everyone onboard had seemingly disappeared en route.

Darrow caught the eye of Agent Prendergast, who was hesitating in the main hatch as though he were afraid the rolling aluminium staircase might not have been properly secured. It was a long way from the hatch down to the tarmac - about eighteen feet, Darrow reckoned. But that wasn't why Prendergast was lingering in the door. He seemed to be trying to decide whether to turn back and go into the cabin once again, or continue down the steps and to the tarmac.

Maybe it was because of Darrow. The way their eyes caught just now wasn't so different from the way they'd sized each other up three weeks ago, a glance that told each of them everything they wanted and needed to know in order to open a whole different investigation in private.

Darrow shook away the thought that Prendergast was avoiding him. Their frolics had been fun, and had run their course naturally over the course of a few days. There'd been no particular tension between them in the aftermath. Still, what was on his mind that he would almost turn back? Had he seen something amiss? Had he gotten a gut feeling but been unsure he wanted to venture back into what the press was now calling a "ghost plane?"

Darrow watched as Prendergast stepped gingerly down the staircase, his feet encased in large white overswaddles that looked like booties. The booties were built into the crime scene garb the technicians all wore, full-body jumpsuits that could accommodate special helmets and air recirculators. That level of caution had not been taken in this case, though Darrow privately wondered whether it should have been. People didn't just disappear from airplanes in flight. Who knew what kind of bacteria, radiation, or other health hazard might still be present within the Stratoglider's fuselage?

Pendergast stepped toward Darrow. He had unzipped the top of his suit and wrapped the upper section around his waist like a sweater. He looked a hot, in several senses of the word; skin flushed, droplets of seat glistening on his forehead. His dark hair might even have been a little damp. He still had a hesitant air about him, and as he approached, eyes locked on Darrow, he wore a quizzical frown.

"You feeling sick?" Darrow asked.

"No," Prendergast told him.

"You look feverish."

"It's hot in there," Prendergast said. "Like the environmental controls are off or something. Heat too high... or air conditioning not working."

"More likely air conditioning not turned on." Darrow said. "I think they powered down the whole plane. And the sun is pretty strong today, so yeah... it would be getting toasty inside there."

Prendergast untied the arms of his suit, then loosened the built in cinch around his waist and began to extricate himself from the suit. He reached out to hold on to Darrow's shoulder for a moment at one point, in order not to lose his balance. Darrow decided that was probably an indication that whatever was troubling Prendergast, it wasn't their short-lived fling.

"You look more than hot," Darrow said. "You having a brain wave about this case?"

Prendergast, now free of the suit, rolled the white fabric around his arms like a muff. He wore a black T-shirt and blue jeans. "Better now," he said. "As for the brain wave... it's more like a brain frazzle. This just doesn't make any sense."

"What was the sequence of events again?" Darrow asked - his way of helping Prendergast think it through.

"The flight took off as scheduled from Dallas, with two hundred sixty passengers plus crew. Communications were normal until about an hour before the flight landed - eleven minutes early - and the general consensus was that radio trouble was to blame. The landing went off without a hitch, and then the plane rolled to a stop on the spillover tarmac, out of the way of traffic, which is standard procedure in cases where there's been communications trouble. The anti-terrorism unit responded, by the book, not expecting to find anything wrong other than technical difficulties. But no one came out of the plane. The ground crew got the stairwell ladders over here and keyed in the hatch release codes using the override function on the diagnostic monitors. Once the doors popped they expected to see some crew, but nothing. They went inside - still nothing. The plane was empty. Somehow, in mid-flight, two hundred eighty-two people vanished."

"And that tells you what?" Darrow asked.

"Hell if I know," Prendergast said.

"Found anything obviously not the way it should be? - other than the missing people, that is?" Darrow asked.

Prendergast frowned at him again. "Have you not been briefed on this?"

"I just got here," Darrow admitted. "Caught a lift from HomeSec since they were sending a few guys over from D.C. anyway."

"Nothing like interagency cooperation," Prendergast muttered. He didn't like HomeSec. It was stupid, but competition and turf battles were still par for the course between different federal law enforcement and security agencies. "I was here already, on loan for the week to the FAA. They had a couple of what looked like abandoned drones - the fear was terrorism, but it turned out to be techrunning, I think. The drones were just left over from the old drug cartels, and the tech pirates must have got them second hand. Or else the cartels are going for tech, now that just about all of Schedule One has been decriminalized."

The blessings of a Libertarian administration working hand in hand with a Libertarian-majority congress, Darrow thought to himself. He supposed he should count himself lucky he still had a job. The federal government had been hemorrhaging jobs from every sector: FBI, DEA, HomeSec, IEA, everything but the military. Darrow had long thought that whoever it was that kept sending oddball cases his way - cult suicides, claims of UFO abduction, spectral rapes, hate crimes that might have been encounters with cryptozoological creatures - was giving him these cases because they were trying to get rid of him. Well, he hadn't left, so when the first couple waves of layoffs happened he'd expected to be in the forefront, figuring whoever didn't like him up there would take advantage of federal downsizing to can his ass.

That hadn't happened - perhaps a paranormal result in and of itself, but one Darrow was glad about. The thing was, he found he liked the challenge of the work; the cases he dealt with had, more often than not, led him to some creepy places, not the least of which was his personal conclusion that the universe really did contain some weird things, like angels and devils and aliens and people with psychic powers.

But an airliner that took off full... okay, technically half full... and landed three hours later totally empty? Even if there were no supernatural explanation, this case was taking the biscuit.

"Were you going to brief me, Prendergast?" Darrow suggested.

"Not much to tell. The plane is in perfect shape. Fuel just what it should be. No event logs showing depressurization or hatch access in mid-flight, so the passengers and crew didn't just jump out. The radio is in perfect working order, so the thought right now is that..." Prendergast hesitated again.

"They all vanished, just like that," Darrow said.

"Just like that," Prendergast echoed.

"Okay," Darrow said. "Do you have a passenger list?"

"They didn't give you that?" Prendergast said, annoyed.

"They said 'Get your ass to New York right now,' and shoved me out the door. I only found out from the HomeSec guys that it had to do with something strange happening on a place. I figured terrorism, or maybe a case of in-flight disruption by one of our most wanted. It wasn't until I got here and Fergusen over there -- " Darrow waved in the direction of the yellow jacketed Field Super, who was part of a cluster of tech guys and airfield workers under the plane's nose cone - "Fergusen filled me in a little. But he didn't say if you had any idea, any at all, what might have happened."

"Nope," Prendergast said. "Nothing."

"And no clues?"

"Nope."

"No blood, no damage to the interior or exterior?"

"Not a thing. Like I said, the plane is exactly as it should be, except..."

Darrow raised an eyebrow in anticipation.

"Well, no passengers, obviously, but also..."

"Am I going to have to drag it out of you?" Darrow snapped impatiently.

"Well, no food. No snacks, no halal or kosher meals, no chicken or steak. And you know the whole thing about these stratospheric fliers, they are supposed to be some kind of return to the luxury and romance of air travel. I mean, it's not space tourism, for fuck's sake, but every advert and slogo they put out harps on the first class service, the top-shelf booze..."

"And none of that's on board?"

"No. And neither is there anything in the sludge tanks."

"The what?"

"The tanks where raw sewage is stored until it can be pumped out during maintenance between flights. The tanks and the galley are empty, just like the cockpit and the cabin. It's as though all organic material just evaporated up there, all of a sudden, just like that." Prendergast looked at Darrow soberly. "Do you think that could happen?"

Aliens? Solar flares? Some sort of exotic wormhole? The Rapture? A host of ideas flashed through Darrow's' mind. Then another thought presented itself.

"Maybe," he muttered. "Maybe." Looking at Prendergast he said, "Can you get us a tab with all the investigative materials?"

"Harris should have one," Prendergast said. "He and I were working in tandem." He looked around, then spotted a man coming down the stairwell. Like Prendergast had done, the newcomer had unzipped his suit's upper portion and wrapped it around his waist to keep form overheating. "Hey! Harris!" Prendergast shouted.

The man reached the ground and turned to face them. He was a young guy, thin, blond and blue eyed. Darrow wondered whether Prendergast and Harris had partnered on more than this hurriedly initiated investigation, then shoved the thought away. It was none of his business, and anyway he didn't care.

Harris made his way over, a field tablet in his hand.

"Is that updated?" Prendergast asked, stabbing a finger at the field tablet.

Harris activated the screen, touched a couple of places on the screen, examined the readout, and then handed the tab to Prendergast. "It is now," he said.

"Thanks," Prendergast said. "Darrow here has some thoughts on our Flying Dutchman."

Harris broke a smile, then turned away as his name was called. The Field Super wanted him for something.

"You have to go report in or something?" Darrow asked.

Prendergast looked like he was wondering the same thing, but then Fergusen gave him a dismissive wave. Prendergast turned back to Darrow. "Looks like he wants me to wok with you."

"Okay, good. Onboard the plane okay?"

Prendergast shrugged. "No reason not to. It's just a plane."

***

It was just a plane, but a pretty damn big plane. It had a small upper deck for first class passengers, with a tidily compact bar. Darrow set the tab on the bar and inspected the bottles.

"You're on duty, you know," Prendergast said, sitting at the bar and starting to scroll through the documents that had been uploaded to the tab.

"Ha, ha!" Darrow shot back sarcastically.

Methodically, he went from one bottle to the next. Scotch; gin; bourbon... He surveyed the wine. Red, white, rose. Merlot, Cuvee something-or-other, Zinfandel. Correction: Old Vine Zinfandel. Inside the refrigerator: Pinot Grigiot, Chardonnay, a few bottles of prosecco and champagne. Even an expensive looking Veuve Cliquot. Darrow had tried that once at a wedding. It had tiny bubbles and a dry, upscale taste.

Darrow bent to peer deeper into the fridge.

"Dude, seriously," Prendergast said, his quizzical frown now one of irritation.

"I'm not looking for my favorite brand here," Darrow assured him. "I'm thinking about what you said earlier - no traces of organic matter. But these unopened wine bottles seem perfectly full. I'm not a chemistry major, but the liquor bottles are probably more full than they should be is some phenomenon selectively removed organic matter from the plane."

"But no lemons or limes, you said," Prendergast said.

"It's a puzzle," Darrow said.

"Take away everything but the water and you still have a pretty full bottle though," Prendergast said. "Right?"

"Well, like I said, I am not an expert. But doesn't scotch get its color from spending time in a wooden cask?"

"Its color and its flavor too," Prendergast said, "but is that strictly the result of organic molecules?"

Darrow shrugged. "It's more information, for what it's worth." He sat at the bar next to Prendergast. "Is that the passenger list?"

"Uh huh," Prendergast said. "I already looked it over once, and nothing jumped out."

"Did you run a cross-comparative search?" Darrow asked.

"No," Prendergast said. "I mean, for what?"

"Watch and learn," Darrow said, taking the tab. He pressed the main interface switch and held it down. "Bunkie?" he said.

Prendergast snorted. "Bunkie" was Darrow's word for all mobile device AI links.

Darrow looked at Prendergast. "This tab has connectivity, right?"

"How else does it update?" Prendergast said.

"Hey, AI," Darrow said.

"You can call me Burt," announced a bright male voice emanating from the tab.

"Yeah, how about Bunkie?" Darrow asked.

"As you wish, sir," the voice chirped.

"This list I'm looking at," Darrow began.

"That list is classified and strictly for use by AeroSaugus employees," the voice informed him cheerfully.

"And security agents," Darrow said.

"Of course," the voice agreed. "Would you identify yourself please?"

"Analyze voice," Darrow said.

"Retinals, please," the voice countered.

Darrow complied, though with a long-suffering air.

"Agent Darrow," the voice said. "You are authorized for any and all analytical support up to Level Five clearance."

"What if I need Level Six?" Darrow asked dryly.

"Then you're out of luck."

"I like you, Jerry," Darrow said.

"Burt," the device corrected.

"Bunkie," Darrow replied.

"You want to stop playing now?" Prendergast interrupted.

"Sorry," Darrow said.

"That's quite all right," the tab's AI responded.

"No, I mean -- " Darrow and Prendergast exchanged quick, amused glances. "Okay, run this list against all criminal and watch list databases."

"No match," the voice said matter-of-factly.

"How about alien abductees?" Darrow asked, unsure of whether was such a list maintained in the governmental archives the AI was accessing.

"No match," the voice said again. Interesting. Not "Invalid search" or "Beyond classification rating." Darrow would have to revisit that some time.

"How about... anyone with an advanced degree in science or mathematics?" Darrow asked.

"One hundred percent," the voice replied.

Darrow shot Prendergast a look. "Who?" he asked.

"One hundred percent."

"Yeah, you have a match, but who is it?"

"One hundred percent," the device said again.

"The AI is saying that everyone on the passenger list matches that criterion," Prendergast told Darrow. "They all had advanced degrees in math and science."

***

It took three-quarters of an hour, but Darrow and Prendergast coaxed details from Burt. Many of the passengers were engineers. A couple were metallurgists. Three were aviation physicists, and three others energy scientists. One was a radiation specialist. Chemists, materials scientists, and even a psychiatrist were on the manifest.

"What the fuck?" Prendergast said.

"Are there any commonalities among the passengers aside from their level of education?" Darrow asked the AI.

"All were employed by Avinox," the voice told him.

"What's Avinox?" Prendergast asked.

"What's Avinox?" Darrow started to repeat for the AI's benefit, but the device was already answering.

"Avinox is a subsidiary of IntelliTech Industries," the AI said.

IntelliTech. This was getting more and more interesting, Darrow thought. "Were there any corporate officers among the passengers?" he asked.

"Three," the voice responded. "Frank Culroy, Executive Vice President of Research and development. Anna Redleaf, Executive of Corporate Accounts. James N'Digou, Executive of Internal Accounts."

Darrow kept quiet for a long time. The AI, too, kept its peace. Suddenly, Prendergast startled Darrow by piping up with, "Do you have an idea about what all this means?"

"It means," Darrow said, handing the tab back to Prendergast, "that this was an inside job. We need to see what other flights - private and charter flights - left Dallas this morning."

"Do you think people on those flights will go missing too?" Prendergast asked, alarmed.

"No," Darrow snapped, impatiently. "That's where the people on this passenger manifest went."

Prendergast shook his head, as though he wasn't getting it.

"They were never on this flight. Nobody was. This plane is a brand new model, right? Its AI can autopilot the entire flight, just like planes have been doing for a couple of decades now. The AI can even take off and land with no problem. Well, in this case, the AI handled all that, while the people who supposed to be on board - "

"Weren't," Prendergast said.

"Now you're catching on," Darrow told him. "If you check the ground crew logs in Dallas you're going to find that they were never given instructions to stock this plane - that's why there's no food on board. The sewage system is empty because it was pumped out after its last crewed flight, as is routine, before the AI took the plane in this latest jaunt."

"With no one onboard to use the facilities, of course the sludge tanks remained empty," murmured Prendergast. "But why? What's with the shell game? Are they trying to fake the deaths of over two hundred employees?"

"They aren't trying to fool us," Darrow said. "Just slow us down. Those people are headed someplace else. Where and why, whether of their own accord or not, I don't know."

"Could IntelliTech be kidnapping some of its own people?"

"I don't know," Darrow said. "Maybe. Either way, they've got something in mind, something that needs a lot of science types, and they wanted to whisk them all off in one go."

***

Prendergast strode up to Fergusen to make his report.

"Darrow figured it out in, like, eighteen minutes," he said. "Are you sure it's a good idea to let him run around knowing what he knows?"

"You told him that you'll file the report?"

"Yes, which makes sense since I am on loan to the New York office."

"Then he's going to go home, forget about it, and start working on his next case," Fergusen shrugged. "By presenting the case to him early, we've defused his influence later. Now he's figured it out... or thinks he has... he won't be piqued later on when the news reports about the ghost flight turn into reports of IntelliTech personnel pulling a fast one and disappearing."

"What cover story will they be using?" Prendergast asked. "Embezzlement?"

"I don't know," Fergusen said. "Who cares? It doesn't matter. Whatever will fly best at the time."

"What do we do now?" Prendergast asked.

"We go through the motions and tick the boxes. I secure the scene and you go back to the office to write your report. The rest will unfold in time."

As Prendergast walked across the tarmac, his eye caught involuntarily on Darrow, who was talking with one of the HomeSec guys - probably trying to make sure he got a ride back home. Prendergast almost felt sorry for the guy. Always feeding on crumbs, always on the periphery of vast and intricate mysteries... and yet never on the inside, never with a seat at the table.

Maybe that could change, Prendergast thought. Maybe if someone explained it to Darrow in a way that made sense to him.

Darrow could be a player, too.