Part 8
It seemed the blonde flight attendant with a nice body was waiting for someone while she held Kamijou down.
The blank time stretched on.
The flight attendant spoke.
"This is a terrorist attack…"
"You're a terrorist!?"
"N-no!!" she hurriedly denied. "The airport control has passed on information that there is one onboard. If we don't give in to their demand, the terrorist will use a structural defect in this Sky Bus 365 to cause its landing to fail…In other words, to make it crash."
"…Seriously?"
"The blood you saw belonged to another crew member. She was suddenly attacked from behind. Most likely by the terrorist."
"You don't think I'm the terrorist, do you?"
Kamijou had a very bad feeling about the situation, but it seemed the flight attendant shook her head. However, he couldn't actually see her head because he was lying face down and she was straddling him.
"I hadn't thought of that… But I can't let this information get out to the other passengers. This may be a dangerous situation, but that information would cause a panic if it got out. People could get hurt and it could even provoke the terrorist into attacking."
She seemed at a loss as to what to do.
Most likely, she had only told him all that because she felt she had owed him for what she had done to him.
She may have completely sealed his movements with her self-defense techniques, but she still felt inferior.
"What are you going to do?"
"Well…"
Before she could continue, help arrived.
Help for her, not for Kamijou.
A large man wearing what looked like a white military uniform arrived. He was most likely the pilot.
The man looked down to where Kamijou was lying and spoke in Japanese.
"…We have to keep him separated from the other passengers."
"B-but can we really do that? It's true that we have a duty to ensure the safety of the passengers, but we don't have the right to confine them."
The one who was actually holding Kamijou down was the one hesitating.
The pilot, on the other hand, did not waver.
Slight distress flashed on his face, but it didn't look to be enough alter his opinion.
"Do you really think telling him not to say anything and then sending him back to his seat would be enough? He would surely panic and that would lead to a major panic amid the passengers. …I thought you understood this. You did follow your instructions to keep him restrained."
"…"
"We have no choice but to keep him back here until the situation is resolved. As thanks for his cooperation, we will refund him the cost of the flight. If he still makes a fuss, we'll just leave it to the airline's legal department."
"W-wait a second!!" Kamijou cut in. He was face down on the floor with one arm held behind his back, but he still spoke loudly. "I heard there might be a terrorist onboard. If that's true, should you really be focusing on this!? Are you sure you can find the guy on your own? You need any extra bit of help you can get, right? So, let me-…!!"
Kamijou's words were cut off by the pilot clicking his tongue.
He glanced up at the flight attendant and then back down to Kamijou's face.
"…We're keeping you confined here so you won't do something like that."
"What?"
"Listen. There are over 500 passengers on this aircraft. The terrorist hiding among them has all of those lives in his grasp. In a situation like this, we can't have an amateur like you going around as he please causing trouble."
Kamijou got pissed at what he took as the pilot picking a fight with him, but the pilot continued with some cold words.
"Can you be entrusted with those 500 lives?"
"…!?"
"As the captain of this aircraft, that is my duty. As such, I will take the actions I determine will best protect the lives of everyone onboard even if it gets me fired in the end. Do not say you will help unless you are prepared to take on everything that entails. You cannot take on that responsibility, nor do you have to."
The pilot gestured to the flight attendant telling her to get off of Kamijou.
He wasn't having Kamijou released.
He was having him confined elsewhere.
"The in-flight meal heating area here is open, so throw him in there. If this becomes a major incident, all responsibility will lie with me."
Part 9
The door closed and Kamijou heard the sound of the lock clicking.
The room had nothing but the microwave ovens and the blood stain in it, so he sat down on one of the metal shelves.
When the pilot had left and the flight attendant was about to throw him into the small room, she had bowed slightly looking apologetic.
"I-I'm very sorry. We have to do this to prevent chaos from breaking out onboard."
She must have felt that he deserved an explanation of the situation that had led to him being left there.
Kamijou thought back on what the flight attendant had told him.
Apparently, the information that a terrorist was onboard was fairly accurate. The emailed threat the airline had received was as follows:
There is a structural defect in the Sky Bus 365 model of passenger aircraft. We have carried out a few tests and proven it. If you do not destroy the master recorder for the four major British airlines, the defect in the Sky Bus 365 headed from Academy City to Edinburgh will be used to bring it down.
"The master recorder?"
"It's a computer that provides centralized management for passengers' flight tickets and luggage tags. Without it, the airlines would grind to a halt. It's just too much information to deal with by hand."
It seemed the method the terrorists wanted them to use to destroy the master recorders was to infect them with the computer virus attached to the email.
"Apparently, if a master recorder is infected while connected to the network, its data will be completely destroyed and a log file of the destruction will be posted as a comment on the airline's blog. If the format of the log were analyzed, a dummy log could be made and the destruction of the master recorders could be faked. However, it seems the logs are encrypted, so the analysis would take a few days."
She kept saying things like "apparently" and "it seems", so Kamijou guessed that the flight attendant was inexperienced with that field.
"…What is this structural defect?"
"We don't know. But the flights mentioned in the email were investigated. They were all Sky Bus 365 models like this one. There was Flight 5991 from Paris to Moscow, Flight 4135 from Neath to New York, and Flight 7558 from Marseille to Beijing. All of them had a 15 second interval where the engines cut out midflight. The parts involved were all disassembled and examined, but no cause was found, so they are still used today."
Those three flights had been practice runs for the terrorists.
And this was the real deal.
Or at least, that was what the investigators had concluded.
"Then what about that blood? You said another crew member was attacked, right?"
"We don't know exactly why the terrorist did that. In fact, it isn't clear what the terrorist has to do to take advantage of this defect. But the attack may have been a necessary part of his plan."
Kamijou had interpreted the look on her face right before she closed the door as one of weariness.
"…So the terrorists are trying to completely close off the air routes to the UK," muttered Kamijou while alone in the small room.
The airlines could go along with the demand and destroy the master recorders or they could refuse and have the Sky Bus 365 crash. Either outcome would be a major blow to the British airline industry.
And this was all on top of the sole land route, the Eurotunnel, being destroyed.
(So were the terrorists also involved with that…?)
Kamijou thought for a bit and finally shook his head.
With so little information, an amateur like him wasn't going to come up with the truth.
He turned his thoughts to having been thrown in the small room.
(That really isn't how you should treat a customer. That said, taking on responsibility for 500 lives really is a bit much…)
Kamijou's shoulders relaxed.
He turned his thoughts in a positive direction.
(I hope the next time that door opens it's good news.)
Part 10
Starting from the front of the plane, the Sky Bus 365 was divided into first, business, and economy classes. It was further divided into 2 floors effectively creating 6 sections.
The stairs used to go between the first and second floors were located in the "wall" areas dividing the different classes. The "wall" areas were actually over 7 meters thick and had bathrooms, a free drink corner, and other small facilities located in them.
There was a certain hatch located in one of those "wall" areas.
It was a fire door connecting to the cargo hold.
The Sky Bus 365's cargo hold was a large area a floor below the passenger seating. There was no real need to connect the passenger area and the cargo hold, but having a passage allowed the crew to put out a fire if one were to break out in the cargo hold. That was the purpose behind the emergency hatch.
"…"
A man was standing in front of the hatch.
A small electronic tone rejected the man's action.
He had a card key in his hand.
He had gone out of his way to attack a flight attendant from behind in order to obtain that card key.
(…Damn.)
The man swiped the card key down through the card reader once more.
But, as he expected, he only got the same rejecting tone as before in response.
(Dammit. I can't do anything if I can't get this open…)
Something like a moan leaked from the man's throat.
He held a black cell phone in his hand. He had the necessary program on it. He just had to attach a cable to the connector on the bottom of the phone and load the necessary program to the Sky Bus 365 in order to complete the preparations to take advantage of the structural defect.
The place he was originally supposed to do that from was an economy class seat. His comrade had reserved the seat under a false name, but a spiky-haired Asian had taken the seat after his comrade's reservation had been cancelled.
He could always use his physical strength to dislodge the boy, but acting violently could make an enemy of around 100 passengers.
This was his only way now.
In order to carry out a backup plan he had in case things weren't going according to the main plan, he had to get that hatch open.
(Fuck, fuck, fuck!! I guess a flight attendant just doesn't have the authority to open the hatch. But everyone of pilot class who have higher authority levels are in the cockpit. If I was just going to charge in there, there was no need for all this roundabout shit with the structural defect.)
Not giving up, the man looked toward the exit from the "wall" area that led to the economy class aisle. If only that spiky-haired Asian hadn't been there, he wouldn't have had to go through any conspicuous actions like attacking a flight attendant.
(Dammit. This has gotten really bad if it's come to using what's in the cargo hold! If only that seat had been empty, this could have gone so well…!!)
"…Huh?"
He wasn't there.
Maybe he was using the bathroom, because the spiky-haired boy who had been sitting in that seat was gone. Also, the silver-haired green-eyed girl who seemed to have been with the boy was out of her seat and wandering down the aisle.
(This is my chance.)
This was his last chance to take out the Sky Bus 365 without using what was in the cargo hold.
The man took gloves out of his pocket. If he were to head straight down the aisle, he would run into the silver-haired girl, so he decided it would be best to use the stairs, go down the aisle on the other floor, and approach the seat from behind the girl.
Part 11
Kamijou Touma wasn't coming back.
Index had been waiting for the boy to return with the crackers, but she had finally been unable to withstand the hunger and stood up from her seat to go find him.
(Touma might be hogging all the delicious things to himself.)
However, Index's search had come to an end quickly. She had thought Kamijou had gone straight down the aisle and into the "wall" area. That wasn't very far away, but she couldn't find him.
"?"
Index looked quizzical and turned back the way she had come.
She then noticed something that made her pause.
Someone else was sitting in Kamijou Touma's seat.
It was a white man wearing a plain, colored suit. He looked to be in his early twenties and was reasonably tall. He had a newspaper covered in French text spread out in front of him, so Index couldn't see the lower half of his face making it difficult to get a grasp of what he looked like.
(Maybe he sat in the wrong seat.)
She had a perfect memory, so she knew she wasn't the one that was mistaken.
As such, she didn't hesitate to sit in her own seat and speak to the man next to her.
"That's Touma's seat."
The man with the newspaper's shoulders twitched at hearing her voice.
Looking closer, he was only holding the newspaper with one hand. When she looked at what his other hand was doing, she saw he was holding some kind of black cell phone. The newspaper also obstructed the view of his lap which had what Index thought might be parts of his phone. There was some kind of thin cable and something that looked like nail clippers.
"…Dammit. I can't even get 120 seconds?" he muttered in French.
Index stared at him in puzzlement and the man took action before she could say anything.
He placed the open newspaper on his legs and casually held his hand out towards her.
He was holding something in that hand.
It was pointed and sharp and he pressed it against Index's side making sure the other passengers couldn't see.
"Airport security mainly gets by with metal detectors," the man said in French. "So it's surprisingly easy to get something like a knife made of whittled animal bone past them. And it's enough to pierce an organ or cut an artery."
The man was making his move in order to keep the witness from moving.
(…This is really bad. The very first step didn't go right and nothing's gone as planned since!!)
The man was a step away from being checkmated.
If the girl next to him let out a scream, it was all over. He could kill the girl, but that could just make enemies of all 100 passengers in that economy class section. He was more afraid of getting wrapped in the panic that would cause than of someone attacking him out of a sense of justice. It wasn't something he could deal with using only a tiny knife.
"…What are you doing?" asked the girl.
The man had no real reason to answer her, but he did so anyway. He was speaking more to himself than to her.
"Loading a program. It's a program that lets me interfere with the emergency landing stabilizer using the data transmission of this cell phone."
"Emergency landing?"
The man ignored the frowning girl and reached over to the area of the wall just below the window next to his seat. He stretched out a round wire, slid it into a gap in the wall, and then moved it sideways. A straight line appeared on the wall almost as if he had cut it with a knife.
The man stuck his fingernail into that thin line and pulled it towards him. It opened up much like the top of a car's dashboard. More than 20 cables were inside.
"If they go along with our demand, I won't have to use this. In fact, I don't really want to have to…"
His voice trailed off.
The cable extending from the connector on the bottom of his phone was supposed to attach to the maintenance cable inside the wall, but it wasn't working. There were small cracks running through the connecter the two cables were supposed to use.
The sound of the two pieces of plastic scraping across each other was about to drive him crazy. He wrinkled his brow and occasionally clicked his tongue, but he met the same result no matter how many times he tried.
The cables wouldn't connect. He couldn't load the program.
"Oh, that's the thing Touma had open," said the girl next to him, but the man wasn't listening.
"Shit!!" he yelled in French and the nearby passengers glanced in his direction.
He slammed the cover to the open area on the wall closed and quietly stared at the ceiling while still holding the bone knife against the girl.
(What do I do?)
He couldn't load the program from the economy class seat. He could no longer "negotiate" using the structural defect.
He truly couldn't use that method.
(…This is the worst case scenario. I wouldn't be exaggerating to say that almost half the purpose behind this plan is gone. The only way left is to rely on that…but I don't want to use it!!)
The man got his feelings under control
He could no longer use the economy class seat, so he had to find a way to open the hatch to the cargo hold. He had to think of a way to get a card key of someone at a higher level than a flight attendant in the remaining time.
And he still had another problem.
There was the girl sitting stiffly next to him.
If he let her go now, she would let those around know about the terrorist attack. He had to silence her somehow.
He had no choice in the matter.
He gulped loudly, put the tools and the phone that were on his lap in his pocket, and instructed the girl while hiding the knife behind the French newspaper.
"Stand up. If you resist at all, I'll stab you."
The plan was falling apart.
Not even the man currently in charge of it was able to control the situation anymore.
Part 12
Kamijou's head suddenly shot up while he was sitting in the in-flight meal heating space that had numerous microwave ovens lining the walls.
(…Footsteps?)
He had suddenly heard what sounded like them from the other side of the door.
And it wasn't just one set of footsteps.
It was at least two.
Kamijou wondered who they were and then a further noise reached his ears.
It sounded like a whistle.
(…Is that Index's?)
The blonde flight attendant with a nice body had given her a cheap ball-like toy because she was getting mad about the in-flight meal not arriving. It was probably a type of gift and it made a whistling sound when squeezed.
It didn't sound like it was being voluntarily squeezed. The sound came at defined intervals as if it were in someone's pocket and rubbing up against their body as they walked.
If the toy really was a prize given for collecting a certain number of airline points, Index wouldn't necessarily be the only person with one, but Kamijou still thought of the girl wearing the plain dress.
If it really was Index, who was with her? It was possible she had been captured by the blonde flight attendant with a nice body.
But then another idea suddenly floated to the top of Kamijou's mind.
The thought was like a splash of cold water to his optimistic view.
(Wait. Would the world really be that kind to us? This could be dangerous.)
He thought back to why he had been thrown into that room in the first place.
(No, that couldn't be…)
Kamijou rejected the idea, but then the two sets of footsteps stopped.
The whistling noise stopped as well.
He could hear the sound of a door opening.
They were in the "wall" area. No other passengers would be around.
And…
"Get in if you don't want me to stab you."
The voice was speaking French, so Kamijou couldn't understand it.
But the rough male voice clearly wasn't the voice of crewmember from the service industry.
(Fuck that!!)
Kamijou was about to run towards the door yelling, but he would only provoke the criminal and probably wouldn't break down the door.
The door wasn't metal, but it didn't look like a simple tackle would break it. The lock was electronic, so using something like a wire wouldn't be any help either.
While he thought about all that, a movement was made on the other side of the door.
It seemed the man making the threat and the person he was threatening had entered a different nearby small room.
(Dammit!!)
Kamijou looked around the area and spotted an aluminum cart for the in-flight meals. It was something like a square baby carriage.
He roughly grabbed the cart's handle and turned it towards the door.
He didn't even have time to think about how much it would cost to pay for the repairs.
"Ooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!" he yelled as he ran forward.
The cart struck the door.
With a loud crash, the front of the aluminum cart was smashed in. However, the door did not escape unscathed. The lock popped off and the door opened as if it had been kicked open. Losing to the momentum, Kamijou and the broken cart continued out into the passageway.
He let go of the cart and looked around.
The "wall" area had a number of small rooms in it, but only one had its door closed.
He grabbed the doorknob and flung the door open.
It was a storage closet for cleaning supplies. A number of mops and a plastic bucket were contained in the small space.
Someone with a familiar face was inside.
It was Index.
She was collapsed face up on the ground and a man Kamijou had never seen before was straddling her. The man had a rubber hose that must have been in the storage closet in his hands and had it wrapped around Index's thin neck.
(What is he doing?)
Faster than he could think, Kamijou's hands moved.
"?"
The man strangling Index must have been engrossed in his task because he didn't notice the danger until Kamijou had grabbed the back of his collar.
Kamijou grabbed the man's suit and forcefully spun his own body around.
The centrifugal force threw the man out of the storage closet. With a crash, he struck the wall without even hitting the ground first.
The oxygen was forced from the man's lungs and he slid to the ground.
Kamijou ignored that.
Odd shouts that not even he understood were pouring from his throat as he raised a leg and thrust it towards the man's ribs.
This time, the man managed to avoid the blow.
He rolled to the side.
Possibly as a measure to lighten the plane's weight due to the high cost of fuel, the inner walls were thin. The bottom of Kamijou's foot sunk into the wall.
That was when the man swung his arm.
Kamijou felt a hot sensation on the back of his calf.
When he looked down, he saw knife made of animal bone.
"…"
Kamijou did not clench his fists.
Instead he grabbed the aluminum bar that had been used as a handle on the broken in-flight meal cart that was sitting at an angle in the passageway.
Kamijou did not hesitate.
The man shrunk back from the obvious blunt weapon Kamijou held.
That was when footsteps reached Kamijou's ears
The flight attendants must have heard Kamijou breaking down the door.
At that point, it seemed the man decided what he had to do.
He put the blade into his pocket and used the nearby staircase to escape to the other floor. Kamijou wasn't sure if he should chase after the man, but he decided on heading towards Index who was lying limp in the storage closet.
"Index!!" he yelled into her ear and she moved slightly. There was a dark bruise around her neck, but she didn't seem to be in any real danger anymore.
Her small mouth moved slightly.
"What? Emergency landing…stabilizer…?"
She spoke words that Kamijou wasn't used to hearing.
And they were words he would never have expected to hear from someone as bad with machines as Index.
That was when help finally came.
A flight attendant and a large man, the captain of the plane, appeared. Apparently, the terrorist took precedence over all else and he had left the piloting to the copilots.
They looked displeased when they saw the destroyed door to the in-flight meal heating room, but, when they saw Index collapsed on the ground and the cut on Kamijou's calf, they picked up on the fact that something bad had happened.
Kamijou explained what had happened and then asked them a question.
"What is the emergency landing stabilizer? It's possible Index heard the terrorist talking about it."
"…Do you know what a belly landing is?" responded the pilot slowly. "You've probably heard it mentioned on the news at times. That's when a plane lands without deploying its wheels so that it slides along the runway creating showers of sparks. Do you know how dangerous that is?"
"Well…I guess with all those sparks, the fuel tanks could ignite."
"A passenger plane's fuel tanks are inside the main wings. They won't normally ignite from the belly of the plane scraping along the runway."
"Then…?"
"It has to do with the engines. They hang down below the main wings. The Sky Bus 365 model is designed so the engines won't contact the ground during a belly landing, but the intense vibrations will still be transferred to within the engines. Inside the rotating engine, the already highly flammable jet fuel reacts with the air making something like a bomb. If unstable vibrations reach that area, there is a danger of it all detonating. The fire in the engine can travel down the fuel pipes and reach the tanks on the main wings causing it all to blow up." The pilot continued to explain the situation to Kamijou. "That is why there is an emergency landing stabilizer in the Sky Bus 365. It automatically detects the shock of a belly landing using sensors and completely shuts down the engines. It also seals off the fuel pipes so a fire in the engines cannot reach the fuel tanks. The plane then heads down the runway purely on inertia and decelerates."
"It completely shuts down the engines…?" Kamijou had a bad feeling deep in his chest and he expressed it in words. "So if that device were to malfunction now…"
All of them fell silent.
The pilot gave a groan and spoke.
"…I more or less understand the situation now. And that includes that your friend there was injured. It's unfortunate that we weren't any help…"
"(Like hell you understand.)" Kamijou muttered under his breath.
The pilot didn't hear him and continued speaking.
"What's most important is that you weren't hurt any worse than you were. But now that passengers have been injured and not just a crewmember, we truly can't let anyone know about this. If they found out, the other 500 passengers would wish for safety and a panic would break out."
His calm manner of speaking further pissed Kamijou off.
Even if this wasn't his problem, Kamijou just couldn't stand having these things decided for him.
"It isn't fair to you two, but we'll have to continue to keep you confined elsewhere. I have a duty to protect the lives of the passengers and, if it's necessary, I will even-…"
The next thing Kamijou knew, his right hand was moving.
As his fist swung upwards he remembered that he still had the aluminum bar in his hand.
However, he was unable to stop his hand.
With a loud impact, the pilot's body was knocked backwards.
"…Fuck that," Kamijou said in a low voice. "What do you mean you're going to protect the lives of the passengers? It's because I went along with what you said that it ended up like this! Do you understand what happened!? How the hell can you act so self-important and then not show any regret when you fail!?"
The pilot started to say something while holding his nose, but Kamijou attacked with his blunt weapon again.
"My friend was attacked!! You say you'll protect the 500 passengers, but you already let one slip through your fingers!! Do you only see people as names on pieces of paperwork! This isn't the same as protecting complete strangers as a part of your job! I have a right to kick that bastard's ass. You can do whatever the hell you want, but I'm gonna do this my way!!"
Kamijou looked over at Index who was being held by the blonde flight attendant with a nice body and tossed the bar to the side.
(…Dammit. If I had been a little more on my toes.)
He then headed off into the staircase the man wearing a suit had disappeared into.
"…You piece of shit. I'm going to keep beating you until you pass out."
Kamijou's violent words were not like his usual self.
Kamijou was not the only one who wasn't himself.
"…Ow," muttered the pilot who had suddenly been hit by the blunt weapon.
He caressed his nose with his fingers and stared off in the direction Kamijou had left in. He slowly moved a hand to the wall where a microphone was. The flight attendants used it to inform the passengers when to put on their seatbelts, but it could also be used to give orders only to the cockpit.
The pilot set it to the channel that only went to the cockpit and spoke in a low voice.
"Wash…"
That was the name of one of the 2 copilots.
"Leave the piloting to Richmond. Yes, that's right. It's an emergency. You unlock the box and bring Archery here."
The blonde flight attendant with a nice body looked at the pilot in shock after hearing that.
Archery was the sole weapon on the Sky Bus 365 that was prepared in the cockpit to prevent control of the yoke from being taken. Because of Japan's Swords and Firearms Control Law, it was a type of bowgun, but it was not constructed much like a bow and arrow nor did it function much like one. When the trigger was pulled, nitrogen gas propelled a metal arrow larger than 40 cm in length at high speed. It was on the level of a hunting rifle.
The pilot gave a snort of contempt at the flight attendant's dumbfounded gaze.
"…That boy won't listen to anyone's orders and he even laid a hand on the captain of this aircraft. He needs to be treated as a dangerous individual. Essentially, we have one more terrorist onboard. I have no intention of letting a kid who has no clue what he is doing run around on this ship."
The flight attendant shivered at his words.
Archery would be there soon.
Part 13
Kamijou arrived at the other floor via the stairs and looked around. As it was after sunset, the passenger areas were lit with soft lighting, but the "wall" area he was in was fairly dim.
The man in the suit was nowhere to be seen.
The business class seats were to the front and the economy class seats were to the back.
In both directions, passengers had newspapers spread out, headphones in their ears, were operating the small monitors, or were passing the time some other way.
(…Which way? Which way did he go?)
Kamijou decided to go back to the economy class seats. He knew what the man looked like, but he got the feeling that every one of the people sitting in the seats was camouflaged in some way.
Kamijou did not have a perfect memory like Index.
He felt like the image of the man's face was about to slip away despite having just seen him.
(If only I could find a way to unsettle him, he'd be easy to find…)
Kamijou clicked his tongue and then froze.
The terrorist wanted to negotiate with the British airlines regarding the destruction of the master recorders. That meant any major event would be a problem for him until the result of the negotiations was clear.
One such major event would be if the plane was about to crash.
(I see.)
Kamijou nodded and headed back to the "wall" area.
(I've found a way to unsettle him.)
A high-pitched buzzer reached the man's ears.
He had gone in the opposite direction than Kamijou and was sitting naturally in his own business class seat. There was nowhere to run in a passenger plane. The best way to escape a pursuer was to mix in with the other passengers.
Sitting there, the electronic tone sounded like it was piercing his chest.
It must have been an emergency alarm because the clear oxygen masks all came down automatically in front of each seat. At first, the passengers stared at them dumbfounded, but then a commotion spread as quickly as fire spreading across hair.
(What? What the hell is going on!?)
The man looked around while gripping his armrests.
(If the oxygen masks are coming out, it means the plane is in trouble… But I haven't loaded the necessary program yet. I haven't taken control of the Sky Bus 365's emergency landing stabilizer yet!!)
The high-pitched buzzer continued.
It may have been because of the passengers panicking around him, but he felt like the plane was shaking oddly.
What if some irregularity had occurred and the plane really was malfunctioning?
(This is bad.)
The man's…no, his group's objective was the destruction of the master recorders of the 4 major airlines in the UK. The airlines still hadn't responded. Even if his group didn't want it, if the Sky Bus 365 were to crash on its own…
The master recorders wouldn't be destroyed.
And not just that. The crash would be treated as a mere accident erasing the existence of the terrorist attack altogether.
(Shit, shit, shit! I have to do something!!)
The man stood up from his seat.
He had to do something about the situation, but he had no real way of doing so.
Meanwhile, the pilot was pissed.
He now had the Sky Bus 365's sole projectile weapon, Archery, and he grabbed the microphone on the wall while frowning in response to the high-pitched buzzer.
The line was connected only to the cockpit.
"What the hell is going on!? You didn't suddenly lower our altitude did you!?"
"N-no. The aircraft is balanced. This isn't an automatic alarm from one of the instruments. It's an alarm from one of the switches."
"Those damn terrorists!!" he yelled while holding Archery.
It seemed he had lost all sense that Kamijou Touma was a passenger and was thinking of him solely as a terrorist.
"If they're going to just do whatever they want with my aircraft, then I have an idea… Hey, Richmond!! Cut off that alarm! If we know it isn't a problem with the instruments, then hurry up and run the automatic announcement! The one that says it was a false alarm and there's nothing to worry about!!"
After yelling into it, the pilot threw the microphone to the floor and lifted up Archery. That Asian had taken the stairs to the other floor. Even thought it was large, the Sky Bus 365 was still a passenger plane, so he would be able to find the boy soon enough if he searched carefully.
"Dammit. I'll stop those fools even if I have to shoot their arms and legs to do it," he spat out and headed for the staircase.
The voice of the copilot came from the tiny speaker on the microphone he had thrown to the floor.
"C-Captain!! Emergency!!"
The microphone was supposed to be held up near one's face, so the fact that the pilot could hear the copilot from the floor showed how loudly he was yelling.
"What? Did they do something else!?"
"I don't know!" yelled the copilot in response. "J-just come back to the cockpit, please! I can't deal with this alone…Dammit. What's going on? What the hell is going on? Th-the fuel meter!! It's going down oddly! I think there might be a hole in the tank!!"
"Seriously…?"
The pilot felt a cold tension wrap around his gut.
That wasn't something one could do just by hitting an alarm on the wall. Could it have something to do with the emergency landing stabilizer?
(…What the hell is going on?)
He was holding Archery in his hands and he could most likely kill an unarmed opponent with it. He was conflicted about whether he should go after the terrorists or return to the cockpit.
"Captain, what do I do!? We aren't going to make it to the airport at this rate! We may even need to prepare for an emergency landing on a highway!!"
"Dammit!!"
With that last report from the copilot, the pilot had made up his mind.
Instead of heading for the staircase, he headed full speed for the cockpit along with the copilot who had brought him Archery.
Part 14
There was a church known as St. George's Cathedral in the London Borough of Lambeth.
St. George was a well-known name, so a lot of schools, hospitals, parks, churches, and other facilities used it. There were numerous churches named St. George's Cathedral in London. This was just one of those.
A church at nighttime usually had a cold and solemn atmosphere created by the flickering light of candles and the moonlight tinted through the stained glass, but that was not so here. There were a number of monitors set up on the pulpit and the pews and square box-shaped pieces of communication equipment with cables spreading out from them were lying on the floor. All this equipment had been provided for them by the headquarters of the science side, Academy City, due to their cooperation. The light of LCD monitors and LEDs disturbed the soft darkness of the church.
A large number of nuns were attempting to operate those unfamiliar machines and running about in confusion while two figures sat calmly in a seat.
One of them was the head of the Anglican Church faction, Archbishop Laura Stewart.
The other was the head of the Knight faction, Knight Leader.
In contrast to Laura's soft expression, Knight Leader's was stern.
"In the end, the head of the Royal Family didn't show up. And I feel not having the three factions gather to have a discussion is setting a bad example."
"…Her Majesty the Queen and the rest of the Royal Family control the police, parliament, and a number of other related agencies and they are taking the needed effort to keep them running. She simply does not have time to come to a place like this."
Laura sighed in response to those words.
There was a clear relationship of power in the three factions of the United Kingdom.
The Royal Family faction had power over the Knight faction.
The Knight faction had power over the Anglican Church faction.
The Anglican Church faction had power over the Royal Family faction.
That was why each of them sent representatives to parliament in order to be able to declare their equivalence. If the Royal Family weakened, various things would get more difficult for Laura and the Church. She cursed the Queen internally wondering if she had purposefully run off.
Knight Leader did not realize Laura's concern and continued speaking.
"…What's important now is that the illusion you cast seems to have begun to take effect."
"Heh hehhn. It's true that completely taking remote control of a huge collection of science like a passenger plane is difficult, but using an illusion to show one false readout is simple."
"So you messed with the cockpit's fuel gauge," Knight Leader said as he glanced over at a computer set up in the cathedral.
A number of LCD monitors and meters were surrounding their two chairs. It was a training simulator identical to the cockpit of the Sky Bus 365. Apparently, it was being used to "aim" the illusion.
"They must be panicking on board right now. The gauge is going down so fast they must think there's a hole in the fuel tank. They will think there is no way they can make it to the airport."
"I see. So they will make an emergency landing on a country highway without many buildings around instead of at the airport." Knight Leaders' eyebrows twitched slightly out of displeasure. "It's true that the report said the terrorists themselves were not planning on bringing the plane down immediately, but we still don't know what the defect in the passenger plane they spoke of is. An emergency landing will be quite difficult. If something goes wrong, this could be very bad."
"Oh? Would you prefer to let it explode in a large city, in a residential area, on the runway of the international airport, or next to the control building for the airport? In the worst case, the number of victims could be many times the number of passengers."
"…"
Knight Leader remained silent for a brief period.
Laura grabbed a nun walking nearby with a report and asked her a question.
"What roads might they perform their emergency landing on?"
"They will most likely land in the area between Kendal and Carlisle on the highway leading to Scotland."
Laura snapped her fingers.
Knight Leader scowled.
"…What was that a signal for?"
"Blockading that area of the highway and all roads leading into it. We also need some equipment to help deal with the terrorist. I was thinking the Knights' Robin Hood would work well."
"So a schemer who deceives people with the church is trying to order around the Knights, the defenders of this country."
"I'd prefer it if you would accept the job when I'm willing to give you credit for it. According to the report, the terrorist isn't a magician and he doesn't seem to be carrying a gun or a bomb. If the plane manages to land safely, I doubt you'd even be able to control the over 500 people onboard. I'm handing you a nice easy job to help you get more experience."
"Ridiculous," spat out Knight Leader. "You can rush this if you want, but what are you going to do if the plane comes apart in midair?"
"In that case, we will recover Index Librorum Prohibitorum from onboard. There's always the spell used when we captured Lidvia Lorenzetti as she was trying to escape on the charter plane. Even if the plane explodes in midair, we can catch someone from the ground as long as its only one person."
"From the bottom of my heart, I believe that you should have an early death."