CJ woke up from his dream. Brian's death had came back and haunted him. He still had remorse for letting his younger brother get killed and trying to shift the blame off of himself. He stared at his watch. it was 1:24 AM. CJ didn't wanted to think about anything that would give him nightmares and drifted back to sleep. He knew that once he would get Sweet out of jail, he would hopefully redeem himself.
CJ woke up at 9:00 AM and felt that he needed to first eat before he decided to take flying lessons. So after getting dressed and walking outside, he hopped onto the Sanchez and rode through the desert..
It took him about ten minutes, but he finally came across Cluckin' Bell at Tierra Roboda. CJ parked his vehicle up front and walked inside the restaurant. He ordered a huge meal and took his food to the table. As CJ sat down to enjoy his meal, he once again thought about Big Smoke and how he ordered that huge meal. It just made him feel even more depressed now that his friend had now turned on him.
Of course, Big Smoke came right back in CJ's mind once he heard his voice on the radio in the background of the restaurant. A news reporter had described the current state of the countryside and even explained that Big Smoke had formed an orphanage back in Los Santos. CJ listened closely when the lady on the radio brought up Big Smoke's name.
"Yes!" CJ heard Big Smoke say over the radio. "Thank you! Thanks you! I'd just like to say this is a great day for the impoverished and disadvantage of Los Santos! And it's a real honor that I am as generous as I am!"
Pfft, generous my ass, CJ thought. You sold me and my family out!
"I remember when I was a little boy, my dear mother would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up!" Smoke continued over the radio. "And I said 'Mom, I want to be a savior'! It's a great opportunity! The Big Smoke Orphanage teaches kids important skills! I was an orphan! I struggled! I saw friends make mistakes and get pulled from the path of righteousness, but now, thanks to the generosity of a great man like me, kids is gonna be saved! Big Smoke, baby! Remember the name!"
CJ didn't bother listening to the rest of the news. He was still shaking his head over how completely nonsensical his former friend was being. If he really cared about funding an orphanage, he wouldn't have sold him and the rest of his family out.
After eating, CJ returned to Verdant Meadows and headed behind the shack to watch the videos. He then came across an Asian man wearing a green pilot suit.
"Who the fuck are you?" CJ asked the man.
"Toreno sent me," the man replied. "I'm your flying instructor. If you're gonna learn how to fly, you're gonna need a professional to train you, because learning to fly airplanes and helicopters is a serious business."
"Whatever, man," CJ murmured. "Just show me the first lesson so I can just get this over with. My brother's counting on me."
"Okay," the instructor told him turning up the video. "Follow me, Carl Johnson."
The instructor guided CJ outside to the hangar, which included a Rustler inside. The pilot hopped inside and started the engine. He drove the plane onto the opening surface and turned it to face straight.
"Hop in, CJ!" the instructor instructed.
Without a word, CJ just shook his head and hopped inside the driver's seat.
"Now the first thing you need to learn before piloting is that you have to test your brakes," the instructor told CJ.
"Yeah, yeah," CJ muttered.
"Now, do you know how to start the plane?" the instructor asked.
"Not really," CJ murmured. He stared at the controls on the front. They seemed like foreign language to him. He wasn't sure if he was ready for this.
"Just hit the switch here," the instructor told him pointing to the switch up front.
So CJ put his foot on the brakes, took a deep breath, and hit the switch. He watched as the plane's propeller spun rapidly, and the engine made a loud sound
"Now, your first lesson would be to take off," the instructor told him.
"Easier said than done!" CJ muttered.
"Now remember," the instructor stated, "Another rule about piloting is that you should always stay alert. Anyone can survive a car crash, but rarely anyone can get out of a plane crash alive. So you need to be careful flying these."
"I hear ya," CJ replied. "So what's first?"
"First," the instructor started, "let's see you fly around and back. But first, you have to look behind you to make sure nothing's there."
CJ looked around. Thankfully, nothing was in the way. "Now all you have to do is accelerate very slowly," the instructor told him.
So CJ complied and slowly began accelerating slowly. He felt his heart pumping hard in his chest. He was fearful inside, but he knew he had to have more courage than that. So he continued accelerating very slowly. So far, it was becoming a breeze for him.
"Now it's time for take off," the instructor told CJ. He then pointed to the lever in the middle. "Pull this lever!"
CJ complied and the plane slowly lifted off the ground.
"Okay," the instructor continued. "Now press this button to set the wheels inside."
He pointed to a button that said "Wheels" up front. CJ pressed the button and continued in the air. He couldn't believe it! He had actually be taken off on air!
"Holy shit!" CJ shouted. "I did it!"
"Yeah you did!" the instructor told him. "Now just continue flying!"
CJ flew the plane around the mountains of the desert. He soared over the river and dam, taking a good view down below. He could see the blazing orange sun up in the sky, shining through the rocky mountains. The sky shone a bright orange-yellow.
"Now just keep steady, CJ!" the instructor ordered.
CJ took a breath of relief. He was actually flying an airplane around the desert. The roads and buildings looked tiny from the distance up. CJ soared through the air up above the desert. It was perhaps the most chilling moment of his life. He decided to soar through the air for another twenty-five minutes, with the instructor telling him exactly what to do to keep steady.
"I'm starting to get the hang of this!" CJ shouted over the running engine.
"It'll grow on you, CJ!" the instructor replied. "Because now you're gonna learn how to land property onto the ground!"
"Ah damn!" CJ shouted.
So without hesitation, CJ turned back around and headed to the ground.
"Very slowly," the instructor ordered as CJ gradually lowered the plane down to the ground. "Don't forget to pull out the wheels!"
So CJ pushed the "Wheels" button, thus causing the wheels on the bottom of the plane to spread from up under, and the plane landed smoothly on the surface as CJ gradually stepped onto the brakes. The plane slowly drifted a few inches on the ground and finally slowed to a stop. CJ took a deep breath as he turned off the engine. The propeller up front slowly stopped spinning.
"Great job, Carl," the instructor complimented CJ. "You did good today. I want you to remember all of this, because we're gonna continue learning new lessons for the next few days."
CJ knew it was going to take him a long while to get used to flying airplanes. He also had to learn how to fly helicopters and use the weapons on the vehicles.
"Okay, then," CJ told him. "But I think at this time, I'd like to take a small break from flying for a while. I'm still not too used to being up in the air."
"No problem, Carl," the instructor told him. "Just be prepared for the next lessons. You're gonna need them."
CJ felt that since it would be weeks before he finally gets his piloting license, he may as well check out the street club back in San Fierro. So he drove back to San Fierro and took a look at the list. He tried the Go-Go Karting challenge, which was a race in which racers race through the streets in go-carts, the San Fierro Fastlane, in which the racers raced around the city in Alphas, San Fierro Hills, where the racers dashed up the hills of San Fierro and through the Badlands in Phoenix vehicles, Country Endurance, where racers in Bullets raced through Easter Basin and the Badlands, Dirtbike Danger, where racers in Sanchez bikes dashed through the Back o Beyond and Shady Creeks, and Bandito County, where racers in Banditos raced across the country. CJ took his time and prevailed in all of them, earning extra money in his pocket, and he and his allies were already making profits in San Fierro.
So for the past three weeks, CJ spent most of his time learning how to fly airplanes and helicopters. After the first week of flying an airplane around the desert and learning to land it, he spent the second week learning how to fly a helicopter and used the weapons on the vehicle to destroy some objects below. On the third week, CJ had to learn how to do loops and barrel rolls, which made CJ feel a little dizzy after a while learning those tricks. CJ was somehow getting used to controlling the aircrafts after all the weeks learning how to fly them.
But after a full month of flight lessons, there was just one last thing CJ had to learn – and he wasn't too proud of this.
"Skydiving?!" CJ yelled one month later as he and the instructor looked down from below the ground while on a moving plane. "You didn't mention that when you told me about these flying lessons!"
"I'm mentioning it now!" the instructor told him. "Here, strap this around your shoulders!" He gave CJ a parachute, which the latter strapped on his shoulders.
CJ took a small glance below. He disliked gravity, and it didn't help that he was about 10,000 feet up in the air. He felt as if he would share the same fate as Wile E. Coyote, with the only disparity being that he wouldn't get right back up after he would break his own fall. Before he attempted to leap, he prayed silently.
Lord, if I don't make it to the bottom alive, please help get Sweet out of prison, CJ thought to himself.
As he took a deep breath, he took a leap off the moving plane and dove down. As he continued falling, he looked around him. The cold air blew heavily through his face. The clouds around him dissipated as he fell through them. He looked down to find that the couldn't see the bottom from high had a bad feeling about this. When he and Ryder were once watching a movie that showed two characters skydiving when they were 12, Lisa had told them that any human being that were so high up in the air on the outside for so long would freeze to death from hypothermia due to the human body not being able to breath in much air at such an altitude.
As he slowly closed in on the Earth, CJ finally saw the surface of the desert. He was now about 2,000 feet in the air. This was now the time to activate the parachute. So CJ decided to take a rapid dive to go faster. He leaned forward like a stray bullet, fell quicker, and at around 900 feet, he pulled the string, which caused the parachute to spread out.
CJ took a deep breath of relief. He was actually falling slowly down the sky, and he prayed that there wouldn't be anything flying in the air that would pop his parachute. He landed on the ground of Verdant Meadows smoothly and looked up just in time to see the instructor landing right besides him.
"Congratulations, Carl!" the instructor cheered. "You got your piloting license! I told you all these months of practice would pay off!"
"Hey," CJ told him. "I'm just doing this for my brother. I don't plan to be no professional pilot now."
"Well, if you want to get your brother out of jail, you'll have to follow Mike's order," the instructor replied. "You're a young man, Carl. You have your whole life ahead of you."
"Yeah," CJ replied. "Hopefully, it won't be risked crashing the plane to the buildings!"
When night fell, CJ was now inside the safehouse lying on his sleeping bag. It has now been a month since he took piloting lessons, and he hasn't heard from his allies for a while. He called in to check up on them every once in a while just to let them know what he was doing during his absence, but he never got a chance to actually have normal conversations with them. His only concern was to bail Sweet out of prison, and he was pretty much missing out on the fun and business back in San Fierro, all because Toreno needed him to learn how to fly. CJ thought about the others. He pictured Sweet still sitting in his prison cell waiting for his family to free him from prison. He pictured Big Smoke still laying back on his sofa in his living room counting his moolah. He pictured Officer Tenpenny and Pulaski laying back in their car watching the gang war get out of hand back in Los Santos. While CJ still wasn't comfortable with handling the flight vehicles, he knew he had to do whatever he can to finally see his brother after all these weeks. it was going to be a lot of work for CJ. But it would hopefully be worth it in the end. He thought of the other allies he had backing him up –Kendl, Cesar, Ryder, Lisa, LB, Dwaine, Jethro, The Truth, Zero, Woozie – they all stuck by CJ's side and helped him move up to see the world around the hood. CJ felt tired from all the lessons and slowly drifted to sleep.