01
Coast To Coast
Barry handed the scrap piece of paper to his superior. It was creased and damaged.
“Luna, we, uh, received this in our mail today. Cleared of any harmful materials, as we’ve been requested to check for, and this seems to be a note. A personal letter of sorts.”
She reluctantly took the folded sheet and opened it.
“Dear Kayla—“ Her voice exhaled for both to hear as her eyes scrawled through the print. “And only Kayla.”
Luna quickly closed the sheet.
“I’ll pass this along to Kayla. It’s cleared, right?” The last word was annotated by her attention darting back to Barry.
“Yes, Luna.” He awkwardly nodded and looked at the floor. “We made sure. Me and uh, James.”
“Fantastic. Excuse me.” Luna retreated the note into her right pocket, the fingers tucking the paper into it.
Kayla’s door rang two quick knocks.
“Come in, Luna.” The girl purred against her tablet.
The butler slowly shut the door behind her.
“Kayla, there’s this note we got from the mail today. I didn’t read any of it.” Luna handed the piece to a Kayla intently staring at her work. She begrudgingly put down her pencil, and unfolded the sheet.
“What does it say?”
Kayla’s eyes shifted to her before revealing its contents. She preluded her findings with an irritated sigh.
“Dear Kayla— And only Kayla.” The recipient ratted off the message. “I know this didn’t seem most important to be worth your attention currently, but I do have something urgent that you need to know.”
“Do not go on the jet that will leave at 1300 today. It is to protect you from very confusing peril, and in fact, will save your life. I know there isn’t much evidence that I could give but, after seeing everything, I thought it appropriate to direct this at you, should you be alerted to it. Yours, Angel, 8/16/96.”
She crumbled up the note after reading it and chucked it at the bed.
“Some old note twenty years ago. What does she know about the plane?”
Luna was reminded to check her watch.
“Well, it’s time. Let’s go.”
Her luggage went to an assistant, and Kayla was on her phone.
“Hey, Kayla!” Jerry’s voice beamed as if to awake her from yet another 2pm beauty sleep session. “We will be hanging around the Los Angeles area for a bit.”
“I’m on the plane now.” Gestures were made to direct her to a hand-sign that notified her of the clearance. “Now on my way.”
The plane’s slow rumble made it very hard for her to keep her mind straight.
“Can we pick you up at around six? I asked them if they had any pickups left, and it turns out they have one. We already secured seats at the resort. You should have been here two days ago. The pool water is warm, but they are clearing the tanks—“
The thought of flying made her slightly queasy, even when she could just ask for medication and she was sitting on a felted chair.
“Could we talk about this once I land? I can power up those radios a bit earlier than you people.”
“Whatever you like, K.” He let an almost cynical yawn into the microphone. “I’m gonna go and enjoy this therapeutic whatever-this-is and when you can roll by let me know, okay?”
“Yes, fine, fine. Okay.”
“Ta-ta for now.” She didn’t even have to end the call herself.
Luna had retreated to a back room. She pulled out a laptop to check on her own obligations when the pilot sought his client’s attention.
“Good morning, Miss Ferrule. Time now is twelve fifty-five. We’re landing at LAX.”
Kayla sighed and yanked the transceiver hanging off of a telephone wire to talk to the captain.
“Can we power up those radios once we land? I will need to arrange my stay with those people.”
“Absolutely.” The pilot replied. “Your call when we fire up the engines.”
“Right now.”
The bird dashed through the other planes on its own private lane until its rumbling made one final yank into the clouds. The popping came in and out of her own ears, but she said nothing and waved twice in the air. One yellow-band attendant was summoned and handed Kayla a capped mug of water and a pill.
She uncapped it and threw it under the river into her throat. The plane tilted and swayed slightly.
“Luna.” She spoke into the receiver and out popped the butler.
“How long is this going to last?”
“Five hours tops.” Her voice beamed through the radio.
The signal was killed when the pilot himself jammed the conversation to relay something to Kayla.
“I’m very sorry, Miss Ferrule, we ran into a problem here.”
“Tell me.” Kayla sighed into the receiver and her grip on it tightened.
“We might have a engine rollback on our hands. On the occasion, we lose control of the plane’s engines.”
“Isn’t there a mechanical check every time this plane is used.”
“Miss Ferrule, this plane passed all of our tests, but you see, we ran into unforeseen circumstances. It could no longer work reliably.” The plane shaking amplified the effects of the pilot’s disclaimer.
“How much longer until we land?”
“Thirty minutes. But it might not even survive for that long.”
Kayla drank one more sip of her water before lying flat on her chair. Her heart had beaten at an increasingly-rapid pace. She used all of her might to reach for the microphone to speak with her butler.
“Luna. If I don’t make this somehow but you did, take my stuff. All of it. They record this into the black box, right?”
“Well,” Luna’s voice shook. “They do keep it in there. At least I hope. We’ll be fine, absolutely fine. It’ll just straighten itself out, I promise. We’ll get to LA on time. We’ll get there safely.”