Nigel shifted restlessly in his seat and half-formed a thought damning airline seats for being so uncomfortable. In fact, he couldn't think of a single plane seat he'd actually been in that had been comfortable. How long had he been traveling on planes anyway?

"Air jungles? Sky jellyfish?"

"What's wrong with that idea?"

"Let's start with 'everything' and then work our way up."

"Do you want to hear this story or not?"

Dave and Andrew. Nigel would recognize their voices anywhere. Yes, they were on the plane with him. He cracked open an eye and was unsurprised to seem them talking to each other. Part of him registered it looked more like the top deck of a Tangara train than an airplane, but he was tired.

"So," Andrew was saying as he tossed popcorn chicken into his mouth, "the airman finds out that the sky jellyfish can't exist in the lower atmosphere, the pressure crushes them or something. So as long as he can drop to the right altitude, they can't reach him..."

"...but the jellyfish are clever and get underneath his plane so he can't escape and the last thing people find is his diary entry because, of course, even when being attacked by flying sky jellyfish tearing him apart he is capable of writing a very detailed diary entry explaining it all," grunted Dave.

"Oh." Andrew blinked. "You've heard it?"

"Read it, yes. And you wanted to discuss hideous air disasters while we're on a plane? Why?"

"I thought a spooky story would lighten the atmosphere," Andrew admitted. "Besides, it was either that or watch Daddy Day-Care on the inflight films."

Nigel groaned. "Would you two keep it down?" he complained.

"Why?" asked Dave, smoking a cigarette even though he was not a smoker. "Did we happen to ruin a lovely dream you were having?"

Nigel tried to get more comfortable and failed. "As a matter of fact, it was a harrowing nightmare! A living hell! There were these two American lesbians with a horse and..."

"That actually happened," Dave reminded him.

"It is a poor memory that only works backwards, the Queen remarked," Andrew quoted in his baritone voice. "Maurice Glietzman, Misery Guts."

"What? That was Lewis Carrol with Alice in Wonderland!" Nigel protested.

"Oh, you remember that, do you?" Andrew scoffed. "What else?"

"I was on a plane with them," Nigel said, trying to get the arm rests from under his legs. "Oh, and Gabby was there. She finally got back and..."

"Gabby?" Dave snorted.

"Punching above your weight there," Andrew agreed, putting down his knitting.

"Hey," Nigel growled. "As she is actually alive, not a junkie, has boobs large enough she's not mistaken for a twelve-year-old boy, nor a rampant fetish for Ronald McDonald, plus is heterosexual and understands how condoms work she is a better catch than either of you two have managed!"

Dave blew a smokescreen and his monocle reflected the fireplace. "Got to admit it there, bro," he said in an American accent. "He's got us there."

"And we were in this festering period of hallucinatory phenomena?" asked Andrew.

"No, in actual fact something hideously ironic had happened to you both and I was never going to see you again," Nigel replied smugly. "Well, no one was ever going to see you again unless they found the bodies but... what are you doing?"

He wasn't on an uncomfortable seat. The seats had unfolded, transformer style and were now plush-covered androids carrying him away. A V-shaped chunk of upholstery had slid up on their rectangular torsoes to reveal burning orange eyes. "This is stupid! Who ordered the wierd chair robots from that Ninja Turtle comic no one ever bothered to publish?" Nigel demanded, confident he would be understood.

"Rule one about dealing with reality," the first chair-bot said. "Ask no questions, tell no lies, take no chances."

"Rule two, never go for the chicken," agreed the second. "Hey, is it true that the pilot have their own special meals?"

"Oh yeah," said an air hostess. "It means we know exactly which ones to spit in."

"Isn't that a bit risky?" asked the chair bot in her perky, whiny voice.

"Not if you hock it right," replied the second in her deeper, smiling voice.

Something smacked hard into Nigel's temple. He couldn't cry out or flinch; his body felt like some enterprising young soul had given him a total blood transfusion and replaced all the red stuff with liquid cement.

But he was wide awake now, like a corpse that was somehow completely conscious of what was happening. Two air hostesses who would never see the side of jailbait again in their lifetimes were leading him up an aisle to where the bathrooms were. And he was being carried by... by two girls he never wanted to see again.

He wanted to scream and fight or even just black out again.

But it seemed things weren't going to be that easy.

x-x-x

"I was sure this was going to be a lot easier in my head," Max told Caroline as they carried the lifeless sack of Nigel towards the toilets. "Oh, the number of times guys have told me that..."

Caroline tried not laugh. "He's a dead weight. How much further till the disabled toilets?" she asked Bonnie. "Cause I think I'm about to pull muscles that might come in handy some time..."

Ronnie cradled Nigel's face in her hand, peeling back one of his eyelids. "He'll be out for the count for at least three hours. We can just dump him in the nearest one and come back later," she reported.

"Yeah, but remember to flush this time," Bonnie told her and laughed tipsily.

As they steered him towards the nearest bathroom, Ronnie asked, "So what exactly did this chocolate-coloured stud do to you two?"

"He was mainly just a jerk," Caroline said. "I mean, he didn't rape or murder or pistol-whip anyone but he was a jerk. There was this lovely kid we knew called Dave and this guy drove him to suicide."

"Though in fairness Dave was already hitchhiking in that general direction," Max said. "Oh, and if we got a dollar for each time he made offensive sexual remarks about us, we could probably buy this plane."

"Wow," said Bonnie. "That's pretty dark."

"Nah, we saved Dave in the end," said Max grandly. "It was kind of our good karma for the next thirty years. I bet if we'd just let him go, we'd have got a lot more out of the last year."

"That's a point, Max," grunted Caroline as they approached the door.

"Is it? Where?"

"Where's Dave and Andrew?" Caroline said. "It'd be nice to see them again."

"No it wouldn't," Max retorted. "The fact they've ditch this tool shows how much they've grown as people during the last year."

There was a distinctive roaring flush from the bathroom.

"Oops," said Bonnie. "Occupado..."

The door opened and a young woman stepped out. She stopped as she saw the two hostesses and their companions carrying a semi-unconscious body.

"Uh, hi," said the woman.

"Hi," said Ronnie smoothly. "Don't mind us, just dealing with a passenger who seems to have gotten a little tired and emotional..."

"Yeah, I kind of get that," agreed the woman. "But I'd really prefer it if you just took him back to his seat and let him sleep it off."

"Why?" Max asked suspiciously. "Do you know him?"

"Yeah. We're sort of... engaged."

There was a long moment of silence.

"You could do so much better," said Caroline eventually.

"I get told that a lot," Gabby agreed.