Ep. 1.5 - Up There's a Heaven, Down There's a Town - Closed

[Deleted]

Set during Week 1, Day 5!

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Sunshine.

It surrounded the cockpit. Above the polycarbonate clouds drifted across the deep blue sky. Only the sound of the Falcon's engine broke the tranquillity, a muted roar that reverberated through its airframe and ejection seat. The heavy package on Sarita's lap gently rumbled with it.

They had been flying for nearly six hours. The jet had made a diversion over Greenland to avoid a line of towering thunderstorms sweeping eastbound across the Atlantic - following a cold front, he had explained. They were growing too high for him to climb over while still avoiding high level airspace, so he had simply elected to go around them instead. While the sight of the mammoth anvil-topped cumulonimbus clouds had been spectacular, particularly where they were struck by the light of the sun, dodging them had added several hours to the flight.

No matter. The jet had assured her heartily he had the fuel to safely make the diversion. Then he had advised her to catch up on some sleep. They were crossing many timezones in a dizzying rush - she would feel it when they finally landed. Better to nap now than feel tired later.

He had gone quiet after that, sometimes humming quietly to himself, other times silent. Only the red and green nav lights on his wingtips had blinked, along with the bright white strobe on his vertical stabilizer. Inside the cockpit mysterious lights had flickered on and off on mysterious fighter jet business. Who knows.

Hour six came and went.

And finally, the jet coughed.

"Er, Sarita?" it said in a hushed voice. "Eh? Are you awake in there by any chance...?"

[Deleted]

"I am."

Sarita had been keeping her eyes closed and her breathing quiet, giving the impression of sleep without actually getting there. The jet had assured her the storms were no issue, but the woman did not trust him that much. For what she felt was her own sake, she had kept her napping light, ready to go in case of emergency.

Depending on how much attention Deuce had paid, he'd either find she was quick to wake, or that she snapped to attention with little showing tiredness. Alert in a pose reminiscent of a runner ready to bolt, Sarita said, "Have we arrived, or is something wrong?"

She glanced out the window to her left, then to her right.

"I see no thunderclouds, so I can assume we passed around the storm. Nice work."

She sounded impressed, but there was a cold evenness to her tone, one that was all business. Up, down, left and right — her eyes went everywhere, taking her surroundings in. They scanned for any differences, however minute; habit forced her to constantly keep one part of her mind on her whereabouts. If Deuce had done something, or something didn't seem quite right, she aimed to pick up on it.

"How are we for fuel?"

[Deleted]

"Well, that's the thing," said the jet.

It sounded embarrassed.

"We're currently about ten thousand feet over Pennsylvania right now. A lovely state! Always liked it. Those are the Appalachians beneath us, if you were curious. And if you look to your far right you should just catch sit of Pittsburgh in the distance. A good place to grab a burger, or so I've been told. Bridges everywhere."

He wasn't lying - green and rippled mountains lay behind the jet's wings, streaked here and there with winding rivers. The city was a dull grey smudge off his right wingtip. A thin layer of smog lay over it.

"And while I wasn't talking out of my ass when I said we had fuel to get us to North America, we're definitely, well... getting to the bottom of my tanks now. I'm not exactly running on fumes yet, but I'll be at that stage within another twenty minutes or so. I've gotta touch down somewhere to top up - if I can find a small airport with both Jet-A and a long enough runway, do you want to give the landing a whirl?"

[Deleted]

Sarita stared at Deuce like he had grown a second head. Then, without hesitation or thinking — merely a hint of irritation — she said, "Let me guess: it's easier for there to be a manual landing because you don't have enough fuel to power whatever systems you need to get down without smashing into said Appalachians."

Sarita had put a lot of trust into Deuce not to fuck something up on their journey. She had started regretting her choices up to now at the beginning of the ride, and only a few hours before had she put the thoughts to bed. Now they were there again, screaming at her in a mix of scathing Spanish and multilingual profanity, and she couldn't help but find it annoying. Scooting forward, the woman gently reached out for the jet's yoke, hesitating as she glanced down at the display.

"Start talking, jet," the singer said, tone clipped and all business. "Tell me what I should be looking at and what these symbols mean. We'd better not get caught if you need to steal fuel, but if this somehow fucks up and I get in trouble, so help me God, I will have Layby nail you to a Cybertronian-sized fencepost as a warning to every idiot of your species that comes to Earth."

She wanted to sound serious, like bodily harm really would come to Deuce if he screwed up. Instead, her voice was tight and sharp with anxiety, hands shaking a little where they hovered above the steering. Sarita swallowed hard, trying to steady herself mentally and physically.

"I have a feeling you expected this to happen, and you didn't want to worry me," Sarita continued. "Next time, if you expect something bad to happen, tell me about it. Unlike what some of your kind may assume, I can take care of myself to an absurd degree, but unlike your kind, I cannot fly if you start going down like a fucking ROCK!"

No, she wasn't going to lose her composure now. No, not at all. She had chewed out Deuce, made it clear the consequences of further stupidity, and they were going. To land. Safely.

If worse came to worse, she hoped they could safely drop through a groundbridge back into Haven. Layby could make portals in mid-air, couldn't he?

[Deleted]

The jet snorted with laughter.

"Chill out, I'm not going to crash," he said. "Jeez, you're worse than Julie. Airplanes don't crash when they run out of fuel - they glide. And they can be landed even without power. Even little spamcans piloted by the general aviation crowd can be landed in a field if they run out of go juice. Hell, it's part of the training."

Despite his lecture he sounded amused. "Anyway, I'm a space robot. We don't crash either when we run out of fuel, we just go into a lower power mode. Which means I won't exactly be out running laps, but I can function just fine. I asked if you wanted to try a landing because I thought it would be fun, not because I tragically drop out of the sky when my gauges tick empty."

[Deleted]

"...Oh."

Her face burned a bright red. Her eyes went buggy, and the woman made a choking noise.

"I...um...I apologize for that. I, um...um...um...."

She fumbled around for a minute. There really was no excusing her lecture, or her sudden lack of trust.... Fuck it, she'd gone and broke composure, and had snapped at one of Layby's guests. What the hell kind of decent person did that?

"I trust you," Sarita said finally. "Just tell me what to do. I am interested, sen — sir, and would still like to try and perform a landing if you'll let me. I deeply, deeply apologize for my tone, my assumptions and my language."

She wouldn't touch the yoke just yet, not until Deuce gave her the go-ahead. He might be thinking otherwise with how she had just reacted.

"If you can find a runway, I'll do whatever you say. Don't worry about getting a full tank — just get what you can get away with. I'll top you off with what I can find and...oh!"

Her embarrassed look switched to one of realization.

"Do you have a preference for a certain fuel? Do they have tastes you like?"

[Deleted]

Unruffled, the jet wagged its wings in an airplane version of a shrug. It seemed to be a very multipurpose gesture.

"No worries, no need to apologise," he said good-humouredly. "It's perfectly normal to be wary of strangers - and hell, of flying. And I'm kind of both rolled up into one very suspicious package. It' no paint off my wings, señorita. So let's get down to biznass and have some fun, mwaha."

The HUD lit with strange lines, numbers, and scales.

"All righty! It looks like I've got a suitable airport for us to go into: John Murtha-Cambria County Airport. Primus, what a mouthful. Elevation is two thousand two hundred eighty-four feet, two runways: runway two-three is almost forty-five hundred feet long, and runway three-three is seven thousand. Nice! Tower frequency is 125.75 - no problem there, I'll do all the talking to ATC while you handle the landing. And... yes!"

He sounded exultant. "They have Jet A available! I sorta figured, but a confirmation is nice. I don't really like Jet A, you're basically drinking kerosene, but it burns better in my engine. Now, if I had to go for taste? I'd be sitting down at a bar somewhere with a glass of Black Comedy. Now there is a drink that tastes great and will clear out your tanks. You could probably use it to polish chrome."

[Deleted]

Sarita smiled at the busy dash. "Lemme know if there's anything on Earth that can be used to make Black Comedy," asked Sarita. She was no barkeep — that was entirely Layby's gig — but she had no qualms being an errand girl. "I'll see if I can hunt down whatever you need, my treat. Granted, certain chemicals on Earth are very limited to the public in how you can get them, so I can't make any promises."

She also made sure to commit the airport's statistics to memory, and couldn't help but be curious. Runways obviously had to be big, but was there purpose in making them different lengths? She imagined the smaller one was for smaller planes, and the large one was probably for Boeings and planes like Deuce's. They still seemed awfully high off the ground, but at least four-fifths lower than they had been cruising before. (And hadn't Deuce mentioned something about the cloud ceiling going as low as three-thousand feet? Or was she remembering something from a weather report?)

"What does kerosene taste like?" asked Sarita, mind flicking back to the thought of fuel. "Is it, um...spicy? Umami? Sweet, even?"

[Deleted]

The jet hummed thoughtfully at the question.

"Well... I guess the human equivalent would be like drinking straight gin," he said. "So, like... really strong. Like drinking a Christmas tree, only fouler. Or, like, I dunno... like drinking Pine Sol right out of the bottle. Not that I've ever drunk Pine Sol, mind you."

He laughed. "A Black Comedy though, ahh, that's the good stuff. Kinda like Nightmare Fuel, but smoother. I don't really know if there's anything on Earth that could possibly be used to mix one - but hey, challenge accepted! Maybe we can figure something out that won't kill me or make me go blind. I'm open to experimentation. I suppose we could always buzz Layby if we get really stuck. I bet he would have an idea."

There was a gentle whine as the jet's engine powered down slightly, the RPM dropping. The nose dipped slightly as it entered a shallow descent, presumably for the distant airport.

"Here, I'm just gonna lose some altitude a bit to make the approach easier," the jet said. "In the meantime, wanna grab the stick and try some basic manoeuvres to get warmed up with? The stick is just on your right hand side."

Sure enough, next to Sarita's right thigh was the flight stick, moulded to comfortably fit a human hand and studded with buttons.

[Deleted]

Sarita looked to her right — Oh. What she thought was the yoke was...actually something sticking out of the display. Sarita had assumed Deuce could be worked like a pinball machine, and the thought of it was rather silly. She fought back the urge to blush, instead saying, "O-okay."

She reached for the steering, putting enough pressure down that she gripped it, but no buttons were activated. It felt similar to a joystick, and she awkwardly hoped that it wasn't a Cybertronian — Oh, fuck me, I am not going there!

Sarita shook her head, a few ornate braids swaying to and fro. She had fixed her hair during a boring part of the flight, using a few black hair-ties from a skirt-pocket. They would curl delicately up on her shoulders as she brought her thoughts back to decency, the woman saying, "Okay, ready for the next thing. What do we do first?"

A grin was flashed at the display. Various metres and thingamabobs (for lack of a better word) were dipping downwards or lowering, probably to match the descent of the jet. She took a minute to admire, of all things, the strange symbols — some curved elegantly, others were of harsher strokes, and some resembled the feathers of birds. When they weren't trying to land, she would have to ask Deuce what some of them meant.

"Anything else I should have my hands on?"

[Deleted]

The emoticon flashed in the middle of the HUD, as if the jet knew exactly what she was thinking.

“Okay!” he said. “The stick on your left hand side is the throttle - push it forward or backward to control how much power my engine in producing. We’re on a long approach for runway 33 right now, but we’re still at nine thousand feet or so, and the airport elevation is roughly twenty–three hundred feet - so, we need to descend! Pull back gently on the throttle to slow us down. Not all the way back, just an inch or two. You’ll hear my engine power back, and my nose will drop a little - let it! Just hold us at a gentle ten degree downward pitch angle for now.”

Sure enough, there was another handle on her left hand side, just below her elbow. It projected at about a forty–five degree angle and looked as if it could be moved forward and back with a gentle touch. Like the flight stick it had obscure buttons on it.

“You speak Japanese?” said the jet, randomly.

[Deleted]

"Got it. Pulling back to ten degrees."

Gently grasping the throttle, Sarita gave a tug — a bit too firm of a tug, as they ended up overshooting by several degrees, the jet startling Sarita with a jerk. She gave a little yip, easing back on the throttle; a ten-degree angle was quickly achieved, and Sarita was looking straight ahead at the horizon. Deuce's nose was dipped towards the ground, trees and mountains looking closer than ever before.

The effect was rather disorientating. Sarita focused on the display instead, not wanting to start feeling plane-sick. It was then that Deuce asked if she spoke Japanese, and Sarita gave him a curious look.

"I apologize, sir, but no," said Sarita. She didn't mention it, but she was assuming that he was assuming she was Asian, due to her accent, her skin colour and features that some had called "Asian-ish". Said features were actually Native American and East Indian, but she wasn't going to get snippy with Deuce over it. Unlike her own species, who had a damn good reason to not be ignorant of the world and cultures that were on their planet, Deuce was a true foreigner. A refugee, like Layby and Miz Cleaver.

"If you need something translated, Google and Bing have such services if you can connect to the Internet. They are not foolproof, of course, but they do a decent job in many cases."

[Deleted]

The jet made a weepy noise.

"I've actually tried both before," he said. "They, um. Provided interesting and colourful translations. Not foolproof, definitely. I mean, they worked, they were serviceable, but what I wanted to say came out sounding pretty goofy. Ah, perfect!"

His grey nose dipped as power was reduced. The roar of the engine subsided a little as the horizon lifted up the canopy, until a little more brown and green earth showed than blue sky. Luckily the descent was not a very steep one; Sarita would not be subjected to the sickening sensation of negative g-forces, the feeling that your stomach had risen into your throat. This was a gentle decline, smooth and controlled. Clouds sailed past the jet, dappling the canopy with mist.

"Good job, you've got us on a good approach," he said. "Once we get a little closer I'll have you slow me down even more, and then we'll start putting down some flaps. And ah, you'll have to excuse me! When you said whatsit, uh, what was the word... 'umami', I thought you might speak the language. Did I hear you speaking a little Spanish earlier?"

[Deleted]

"You heard correctly," said Sarita. "I do speak Spanish, sir."

With a small smile on her lips, Sarita leaned forward and made a fist, resting her chin on it. Her elbow propped up on one knee, she let her full Latin lilt roll out, tinged with Oregonian influence as she said in the language, «And I speak it rather fluently. I'm afraid it wouldn't do well in Spain, though; I speak the Mexican dialect. It has terminology and vocabulary that would make many Spaniards scratch their heads.»

Leaning back, her accent was noticeably toned down as she continued with, "The word 'umami' is a loanword in English. The language has a habit of adopting words from other tongues, adapting concepts to fit its needs and subjects. We don't have just idiots, we have putzes; we refer to comedy at the expense of another's pain as schadenfreude; and the love to which one will be married is a fianceé."

She straightened her posture, looking rather proud with her grasp of both languages.

"What about Neocybex? Is it mostly 'pure' in its vocabulary, or do you have something akin to loanwords?"

She looked up again, glancing at the horizon with a thoughtful look.

"Let me know when I should prepare myself for the flaps."

[Deleted]

Evidently the jet understood Spanish; he hummed thoughtfully when she spoke in it, her soft voice rolling through the cockpit.

"I'm rubbish with the Mexican dialect, I'm afraid," he said. He laughed sheepishly. "I learned it first in... shoot, was it Cuba? It might have been Cuba. I tried to visit Mérida once and I was soundly defeated by the local vocabulary. I think it's Mayan. It left me scratching my head a lot. It sure was a beautiful language, though. Very musical. I need to see more of Mexico, really. Maybe I should get you to teach me some of its dialects."

Now that they were getting closer to the ground Sarita would be able to make out that the jet was flying at a tremendous speed. The ground blurred beneath them, growing closer by the second. Trees became visible on the steep hills, as did hedges and fences and houses. The clouds were above them now, streaked with sunlight.

The jet continued to chat.

"As for Neocybex, nah, it doesn't readily adapt to much. We as a species are very resistant to adopting anything from other species, and that includes languages. It's pretty rigid. Static. Different regions on Cybertron have different dialects - Kaon's is great to swear in - but few outside influences have touched Neocybex beyond that. I bet it hasn't changed in millions of years. Okay!"

His voice changed, became a little more businesslike again. "We're less than fifteen miles out, and the tower has cleared us for a straight in approach on runway 33. What you need to do now is pull on the throttle again and bring the power back. Don't let the nose drop too steep - we don't want to dive-bomb the airport. On the left hand side of the HUD is a little scale with a number in a box - that number is our airspeed. When our airspeed drops below 300 I want you to lower the landing gear - the flaps will come down with the gear. The gear handle is a funny looking circular knob on the panel beside and just a little above your left knee. It sort of looks like a small vertical doughnut, smaller than your hand. The three lights above it will turn green once the gear is down and locked."

Sure enough, the knob was there. It did look a bit like an upright doughnut, only minus the hole. It looked as if it could be switched either up or down.