Flight 491 (Part 2)
A story about automation and anxious fliers.
Note: this story picks up from where part 1 left off! If you haven’t read that yet, it’s the best place to start :)
Thalia stood with her duffel bag between her feet, practically hidden in the long grass of the sweeping plains she’d found herself on. Even dressed as she was, in cargo pants and a black tank top, it was hot. Almost unbearably so. Wind blew across the plain, but it was hot and offered no relief.
The pack of girls – four of them – had staked out their claim on the only shade available, a space in the shadow of a shrubby tree. They were voicing their frustrations with the delay, and still trying to find mobile service, but they didn’t seem particularly concerned. In fact, none of her fellow passengers seemed worried at all.
A few men in business attire were sitting on their suitcases, one reading a book while the others made casual small talk, swapping stories of business deals and families. Beside her, Evelyn lay on her back in the grass, caught somewhere between cloud-watching and dozing.
How any of them could be so relaxed was beyond her.
As if Evelyn could read her mind, her dark brown eyes met hers.
“Alright there, dear?” She asked, her bracelets clanging together as she sat up.
“Oh, yeah. I’m fine.” Thalia said, giving her what she hoped was a smile - despite it feeling like a grimace.
Evelyn’s gaze swept over her, a kind smile on her face as if she knew without Thalia even saying it that she was nervous.
“Just relax,” she said, patting the grass beside her to tell her to sit, “these things never take too long.”
Reluctantly, Thalia dropped to the ground beside her, leaning forward with her arms on her knees, keeping her bag tucked between her legs. Satisfied that she was at least somewhat less tense-looking than before, Evelyn lay back down, her eyes drifting closed again.
Something was grabbing her. Rocking her from side to side.
There were noises – a high-pitched blur of words that almost made sense.
Her eyes opened, and she was jolted awake by the sight of a tanned-skinned blonde-haired girl with perfect teeth leaning over her, amusement sparkling in bright blue eyes.
“Sorry,” the girl said, stepping back as Thalia sat up, “just to check – someone said you’re from Bael?”
She blinked up at the girl dumbly. It took her a moment, leaning forward with her arms on her knees and rubbing her eyes, to piece things together. The bright midday had turned into the fading glow of the evening, and the grass seeds in her hair meant she must have fallen asleep. Beside her, Evelyn was still dozing.
“So are you?” The girl asked again.
“Am I what?” A frown creased her brows.
“From Bael.”
“Oh,” Thalia nodded, “yeah, I am.”
The girl was reaching down, a tanned hand grabbing at her wrist and pulling her to her feet. Reluctantly, Thalia followed it, brushing grass from her cargo pants as she did.
“Perfect,” the girl was saying, “you can help, then. I’m Laurie, by the way.”
Now standing, Thalia could see that Laurie’s three friends were next to them, all smiling at her expectantly with those same perfect white teeth and long locks of shiny hair.
“Thalia. Ah, help with what?”
Laurie and co looked at her like she was a fool, like the answer to her question was obvious. Four sets of eyes – one blue, two shades of brown and one somewhat green – blinked out at her, giving her a moment to get there herself. Thalia just raised her brows.
“Food, obviously,” Laurie said, and she could hear in her voice that she would’ve dearly loved to accompany those words with an eye roll.
Food was far from Thalia’s mind. As she looked around them, the only thing she cared about was that they had spent a quarter of a day sitting around in the grass, and nobody had come to help them. Was no one else concerned by this?
Looking around her, the answer seemed to be no. The businessmen had taken to napping, the one who had been reading now with his book splayed out across his chest. Evelyn was still asleep. No one, not even these perfect-teethed smiling girls, seemed worried about their predicament.
“I mean,” the girl was talking, and Thalia realised that she may have been talking for some time while her mind had been preoccupied with decidedly more important things, “they say it’s like, survival of the fittest, where you’re from. So, can’t you, like, show us how to find some food? We’re starving – thought we’d eat on board, so I didn’t waste bag space on snacks.”
It was as she heard the words “survival of the fittest” that she realised what was going on here. What the girls before her thought of people from Bael. Thought of her. A sarcastic laugh ripped from her with the realisation, and she couldn’t help but shake her head. Laurie and her friends were frowning at her now.
“I get my food from a shop,” Thalia said, and she couldn’t help the anger in her words. “Like everyone else.”
She knew, of course, that people from other planets thought lowly of Bael. The better half of a decade she’d spent waiting tables at the spaceport diner had driven their sentiments into her. How many times had someone given her a large tip? Then they’d flash her a sympathetic look that clearly told her they thought tipping her was an act of charity.
She knew that people thought little of Bael. She’d just never had someone slap her in the face with their views before.
“God, there’s no need to snap like that,” Laurie was saying, her frown deepening and her friends’ faces echoing her disapproval, “it was just a question. Calm down.”
Their matching frowns, and the reprimand in Laurie’s tone felt to her a lot like she was a naughty puppy getting told off for biting. But if she had been defensive, it was only because she’d been insulted. Only because Laurie had thrown her prejudices in her face under the guise of asking for help.
If she had been snappy, it was deserved.
She was opening her mouth, lips forming a retort, when a many-ringed wrinkled hand settled on her shoulder.
“It’s alright, dear.”
It was Evelyn, stepping up beside her with her gold bracelets sliding along her arms. That same sweet smile was on her face.
“How about,” she said, one hand rummaging in the large handbag hanging off her other arm, “you girls take these? That should tide you over until some help arrives – it won’t be long now.”
Evelyn held out an offering to Laurie. A large bag of salted kale chips that Laurie took with a bright smile.
“Oh, thanks!” she said, turning to her friends with the bag held up to show off her winnings. As if she had gone full hunter-gatherer for them, the way she had expected Thalia to.
As Laurie, placated with food in hand, led her friends back over to their bags, Evelyn tugged lightly on Thalia’s arm.
“Come now, dear,” she said, offering her a friendly smile, “let’s sit back down. I’ve got more where that came from. I never travel without snacks – you never know when these things might happen! So, we’ll have a bite to eat ourselves, shall we?”
Thalia let herself be guided back to their bags, dropping wordlessly to the ground beside her duffel bag. She felt hot, and she knew her cheeks were still flushed with her anger at Laurie’s words.
Beside her, Evelyn was settling back into the grass, her long-fingered hands rummaging through her bag. She came up with a container of cheese and crackers, and Thalia felt her anger dissolve as the container was offered to her.
“So,” she said, pausing to load up a wafer biscuit with slices of hard cheese, “how often does this happen?”
“It’s happened to me quite a few times,” Evelyn said, which did little to quell her concerns, “but I fly very regularly, dear, so don’t let that scare you.” Her gold bracelets jingled as she layered cheese upon a biscuit. “They send a team to fix the issue, and then on we go, dear. I say that it’s best to travel with essentials just in case, but I can’t imagine they’ll be too much longer.”
Thalia couldn’t help but think about how long they’d already been there. Stuck on an unknown planet with their useless automated spaceship just sitting there in front of them.
She was about to ask how long it usually took when one of the girls let out a gasp so loud that the dozing businessmen jolted awake.
“Up there!” She was saying, standing and pointing one slender, tanned hand into the sky.
Squinting up at the darkening sky, she quickly found what the girl was excited about. A ring of blue flashing lights – clearly a spaceship – was coming closer.
“Well, speak of the devil, and he shall appear!” Evelyn quipped, a warm smile on her face.
Evelyn stood, packing the container of snacks back into her bag as she rose.
“Up now, dear. They’ll have it fixed in no time at all.”
Thalia followed her up, grabbing her duffel bag with one hand. Around them, the businessmen were waking, beginning to gather their belongings. As a group, the passengers watched as the shiny silver spaceship came down alongside their own broken one.
A few moments passed before the spaceship’s entry door rolled up, the access ramp unfolding to the ground with a thud. Then came the crew – three men in orange jumpsuits, one speaking into a radio and the others carrying toolkits.
Thalia waited for them to come over to say something about the situation, but when they entered the broken-down spaceship wordlessly, and no one acted like there was an issue, she guessed that communication wasn’t part of their job. Around her, the others were still readying their bags. The businessmen were tucking books back into their suitcases, and the girls were stowing their lip gloss and gum again. Evelyn just stood, watching the spaceship with quiet patience.
The last of the day’s light was sinking below the horizon, and goosebumps were beginning to stand up on Thalia’s arms. This planet wasn’t a warm one, and she had dressed for the summer of Luath, not a cold night on an unknown planet. Dropping her duffel bag to the ground, she was digging through it for an extra layer of clothing when the work crew emerged again. Her head snapping up to look at them, she noticed her fellow passengers beginning to move forward to reboard as the crew headed back to their own spaceship.
Not a single word had been exchanged between the crew and the passengers, and now they were just leaving, and Thalia was supposed to just get back on board again?
“Wait a second!” She called, abandoning her search for a jumper and running forward to catch the crew.
One of them, the one who had been talking into the radio before, turned around. “What?” He said, his voice gruff and his dark eyes expectant. He sounded irritable from the get-go, as if having to come out to fix their spaceship was asking too much of him.
“Ah, I just want to know what we do next. What’s wrong with the spaceship?”
“Nothing’s wrong with it. It’s working just fine. Get back on and enjoy your flight, Ma’am.” His voice was dismissive, and he was already turning to keep walking when Thalia reached out, grabbing his upper arm to halt him.
“But it just landed on some random planet mid-flight? How is that “nothing wrong with it”?”
“Anxious flier?” He raised his brows at her, his tired face looking as if he’d dealt with “people like her” far too often.
“No,” she snapped, arms crossing against her chest, “I just like to know I’m not going to get stranded again.”
“Stranded?” He smirked. “All that was wrong is that the computer decided to just change a few coordinates. Happens all the time. We override it, and off you go again.”
“Happens all the time?” A deep frown settled on her forehead. “That’s hardly comforting. You expect us to just get back on and trust it again?”
“Look around,” he said, gesturing with large work-hardened hands, “your friends have no problem with it. Chances are it’s happened to them a bunch of times.”
She did look around and noticed that everyone else was back on the spaceship. Not even Evelyn had stood outside to wait for her.
“Look,” he said as her head turned back to him, “you can either get back on and go again, or stay here. But this planet doesn’t even have a name, Ma’am, and there’s no spaceport here. You might be waiting a mighty long time for another one to break down here so you can hitch a ride home.”
“Wait, so… they send us on dodgy automated flights and then when it goes wrong, they send people out here to fix it? Can’t we just go back with you?”
He laughed, a dry hacking sound as he shook his head.
“That’s not the way this works, Ma’am. You bought a ticket for that flight. You either get back on it or you stay here.”
With that, he turned on his heels before Thalia got the chance to stop him. She could see his two crewmates waiting impatiently by their spacecraft, one of them tapping his foot.
A high-pitched whistle split the air, and she turned to see Evelyn poking her head out the spacecraft door.
“Come on, dear! You’re holding everyone up now.” She called, beckoning for her to get on the spaceship.
For a moment, she just stood there. Goosebumpy arms dropped helplessly to her sides. A heavy sigh left her, and she trudged forward, grabbing her duffel bag and heading back for the spaceship.
Maybe Evelyn is not that bad after all. But I'm beginning to question Thalia's behavior. Everyone else is on board while she's carelessly lingering on an inhibited planet. How does she know the glitchy automated spaceship would not just fly off leaving her stranded? 😬