A/N: This was actually a book report that
I wrote in 7th grade. It's
an extension of Michael Crichton's Airframe. It picks up right where Airframe left off. Airframe isn't exactly my favorite Crichton
novel, but it was just what I happened to use for this. Actually, I've only read it twice, as
opposed to the countless times I've read Jurassic Park and Sphere. (And no, I don't like those just because of
the movies. In fact, I despise the Sphere
movie. There are so many inaccuracies
and things – important things – that they left out!) And I could ramble on and on about how much
I love Crichton's work (and hate the movies), but I'll spare you. If you care to babble about it, though, feel
free to e-mail me!
Warning: Since I wrote this in 7th
grade, the tenses are a bit funky. Bear
with it. I didn't change it because
that's just the one thing I have problems with correcting. Oh, yeah, it's a bit short, too. Sorry about that. (And I really hope I didn't miss any mistakes… but I probably
did. And that's not something I do very
often!)
Disclaimer: Everything in here belongs
to the genius Michael Crichton.
MURDER
CHANG
Jennifer
Malone had thought that anything to do with TransPacific flight 545 was old
news. She was wrong. Yesterday, Thomas Chang was found dead in
his apartment. Someone had murdered him
and there was an ongoing investigation. And she had to do a segment on Hard Copy about it.
She was chosen to do the segment
because of her background knowledge of flight 545. After all of her research on the Norton N-22, she did not
broadcast the segment. That was when
she worked for Newsline. No one
there wanted a parts story. They didn't
want to be like 60 Minutes.
To research Thomas Chang's death,
she would have to fly to China. After
what happened she wasn't sure if she could handle being on any plane. "But," she thought, "if I am
going on an airplane, I'll go on an N-22. I know that its safe." She managed to get a flight at 7:00 the next night.
*****
At the
airport, there was total chaos. There
were screaming kids everywhere. Malone
hoped that none of them would be on her flight. As she was boarding her plane, she saw a man that looked
familiar. Wasn't that Marder? She dismissed the idea quickly.
The flight was boring and
uneventful. She had a lot of time to
think. To think about what had happened
on TransPacific flight 545. To think
about the unfortunate families of the deceased. Mostly, to think about Thomas Chang's murder.
"Funny," she thought,
"that the words Marder and murder only differ by one letter. Just a weird coincidence, I guess." Then she felt the plane start to land and
her thoughts fled like a rabbit from a bear.
She reached into the overhead
compartment to get her carry-on luggage. Then she walked off of the plane. She looked at her watch. It was
about an hour before she had boarded the plane. "Stupid time zones," she muttered.
As she waited for her luggage, she
mentally worked out her schedule for the next day. At 10:00 she would interview the police working on Chang's murder
case. In the time before that, she would
review the information about flight 545. She didn't have much to review; she remembered most of it vividly.
When she got her luggage she took a cab to the motel. It was gigantic and intimidating. Malone got the keys to her room on the 4th floor. She went in, put her stuff in a corner, turned on HBO, and fell asleep.
MALONE
Jennifer
Malone woke up at 9:30 AM. She saw the
clock and panicked. Then she saw Jim
Carrey. She quickly turned off the TV,
got dressed, and left. She forgot to
lock the door.
*****
Malone
took a cab to the police station. She
just barely made it there in time. When
she went in she heard them talking very fast in Chinese. They saw her and asked if she was the
reporter. She answered that she was the
reporter.
Then she asked them if they had any leads on the case. They told her that they had found some fingerprints and were trying to identify them and that it would lead them to the murderer. Malone couldn't believe that she had come so far and they could solve the case without her. She told them to call her at the motel when they found out who the murderer was.
Back at
the motel Jennifer Malone was packing her stuff since she didn't need to stay
much longer. Then she heard the glass
of her window shattering.
Someone was breaking into her
room.
The intruder had a ski mask on, so
Malone couldn't see their face. He had
a knife in one hand, and as soon as she saw that she ran into the bathroom and
locked it.
"Not very courageous, but
better safe than sorry," she thought. She figured she could wait in the bathroom until the intruder got
discouraged and left. She couldn't have
had a worse plan.
The intruder knocked down the door
and stabbed Malone in the back. She
fell to the floor screaming. A puddle
of blood was starting to gather around her. The man unmasked himself.
It was Marder.
He left her there to die, exiting
through the door. As soon as he got out
a police man pinned him to the wall of the building and read him his
rights. They had found that he had also
murdered Chang. They cuffed him and
took him to the station. Paramedics
attended to Malone.
*****
A few
weeks later, Jennifer Malone recovered from her stabbing. She flew back to the United States to do the
segment about the murder of Thomas Chang, with a firsthand experience.
John Marder had been found guilty to murdering Thomas Chang. He had done it because he claimed that, "He screwed the Korea sale." Marder is now in jail in China.
*****
The
segment on Hard Copy about Chang's murder was a great success. Even Casey Singleton watched it.