Pandemic: Resident Evil VI
Chapter Thirty Seven: Emergency Landing
Whack! Leon's vision went dark for a second when the sudden lurching forward of the plane caused his head to smack into the doorframe, and now he was pretty much on top of Helena, pinning her against the wall as… as his ears popped? Wait a second, unlike military aircraft, the cabins of planes like this had equalized pressure, so the Agent's ears would only pop if… if the plane experiences a massive loss of internal pressure… or altitude. For a moment he allowed himself to think that the pilots would correct whatever was wrong, but… oh yeah, the pilots were dead.
"Oh my God, are we crashing?!" Helena exclaimed, grabbing him by the front of the shirt. "We're crashing, aren't we?! Leon, do something!"
"God damn it, Harper, calm down!" Leon yelled back, breaking her grip. "This is no time to panic!"
"Actually, Leon, it's the perfect time to panic." Gillette added, startling them when she ripped open the locked door. "I did something without thinking about the consequences, and now we're losing altitude… come on, you two, we have to get to the cockpit."
Since the plane was pointing slightly down, heading toward the small control room at the front was kind of like running down a shallow hill, once Leon and Helena managed to get themselves out of the bathroom, that is. It was actually quite a struggle, since they were wedged into the tiny room together like sardines, and… okay, how in the hell did couples actually go in there to become part of the Mile High Club? Or was that just bullshit? Had to be bullshit, since there hadn't been enough room in there to fool around even if he wanted to with her.
Anyway, according to Gillette, once her family had defeated the zombies and subdued those gas monsters, she had them dragged toward the back of the plane toward the cargo ramp, which caused the infection of every single passenger since the things just wouldn't stop spewing. Once everyone was forced into the plane's loading bay, the stewardess opened the ramp, but forgot that the aircraft was pressurized, and the resulting section caused the three monsters… as well as all the infected passengers to be sucked out at fifty thousand feet.
By the time Gillette got it closed again, her whole new family was gone, and now the plane was starting to crash. It wasn't in a nosedive or anything like that, so there was probably still some time before impact, but the stewardess didn't know how to fly a plane… so it was a good thing that there was a world-renowned super spy onboard. Gillette just knew that the Agent was going to swoop down into that cockpit and save the day, because if he didn't, well… yeah, best not to think about that.
"Is that true, Leon?" Helena asked as they strapped themselves into the pilot's seats. "Do you really know how to fly a plane like this?"
"No." Leon bluntly replied, swallowing hard as he looked at the controls. "Do you?"
The young woman's jaw dropped open when he said these words, and now the Agent was starting to sweat as he looked around at the control panel. How did anyone manage to do anything in this place, he wondered? There had to be hundreds of buttons, and levers, and switches, with most of them blinking, or beeping, or flashing… yeah, needed to look at something else for a second. Unfortunately, the only other thing around to look at was the front windscreen, and at that moment the plane passed through the clouds… good news, they were no longer over the ocean… there was a city down there!
"Pull up!" Helena screamed, grabbing for the control wheel right in front of her. "Leon, help me pull this!"
All right, it was the best idea so far, so the Agent grabbed onto the identical wheel in front of him, and together they… wow, these things were actually pretty heavy. Slowly… slowly, the plane started to level off in reaction to what they were doing, but something was wrong… the plane was able to level off mostly, turning the dive into a slightly downward glide, but… but the thing just wasn't climbing no matter how hard they pulled on the wheels. So instead of crashing into the very edge of the city, at this rate it looked like they were going to hit somewhere toward the other side… great.
"Come on, Leon, you've gotta know something that'll get us out of this." Gillette said from the seat behind them. "The crash won't hurt me, but I want to make sure you're safe."
"Okay, what do they do on TV when this happens?" Helena asked, looking around at the controls. "They mess with things like flaps, right? And Landing Gear… what do those look like? Come on, Leon, you're older, didn't you ever watch Airwolf when you were a kid?"
"Airwolf's about a helicopter!" The Agent yelled as the cityscape below slowly got closer. "Face it, none of us knows what the hell we're doing, we're gonna… we're gonna have to find a place to set down."
Yeah, that was it! That was what they did in all those ridiculous movies where there was a plane crash; they looked around and saw someplace like a big field or a long stretch of highway, and… oh yeah, they needed to call for help on the radio to let the nearest airport know that they were in trouble. Okay, just take it one step at a time… the Agent picked up the radio receiver and started to do a mayday transmission, only to be greeted by an angry voice that was screaming at him in Chinese… well, at least they were mostly still on course.
All right, there goes that idea… oh well, the locals would get the hint when they saw a giant 747 coming down in a field or a, uh… it was night time, so all Leon could see out there were the lights of the city, and all of the buildings were so close together that there wasn't a field or a highway in sight… at least not big and straight enough for the plane. No, they were going to have to try and get away from the city, and… yeah, that was it. As long as he could keep the plane as level as it was right now, maybe they would clear the city completely, and crash into that big dark area on the other side.
"Right, here's the plan." The Agent said, feeling only slightly better. "As soon as we reach the other side of the city, we're going to set down in that big field over there, and hopefully, uh… hopefully we don't wreck too badly."
"Way to go, Leon!" Gillette cheered happily, clapping her hands. "I knew you could do it… I think that's water over there, but it's still a pretty smart plan… I don't get it, why does my husband always say that you're half-retarded?"
The mere mention of Tobias Liquid was enough to make Leon grit his teeth with anger, but no… no, right now he needed to stay calm and keep the plane from moving even an inch off course. It was scary enough when he tried to turn slightly to the left to stay clear of one of the taller structures, causing the girls to cry out in shock as the whole aircraft started shaking, so he left it alone. Okay, so far so good; they were passing over the city with no problem, and staying calm was easy as long as he didn't pay attention to how much closer the top of those buildings was getting with each passing minute.
A water landing wasn't exactly the ideal way to end a flight, but it was a hell of a lot better than crashing into a building full of people or a crowded street, and hey… on the bright side, at least there were no passengers left on the plane to get in the way as they tried to get out. There were no passengers… because they had all been infected while the Agent hid in the bathroom like a coward. No, there was nothing he could have done to help them, especially against Gillette, but the Agent still felt like a coward for not doing… oh, I don't know, something.
"Leon, that's the water way over there, right?" Helena asked, pointing toward the distant darkness. "So, aren't we coming in a little low?"
She was right; somehow either their angle of descent had steepened, or the Agent had made a grave miscalculation when it came to how far they could glide the plane before touching down… damn it, it wasn't like anyone onboard was a trained pilot or anything. Everything they had been doing since sitting down in the control room had been guesswork, and they were lucky to have stopped the plane's initial crash dive in the first place… not that this realization helped them in any way as the terrain got closer until it could no longer be seen because of how high up the windows were.
Wham! Something struck the plane from underneath, jolting them forward in their seats, and then something else impacted a lot harder from the left side, causing the plane to tilt several degrees sideways. That last hit must've ripped off the wing, Leon thought as he fought the controls to keep them steady so the aircraft didn't flip over and crush them or anything, and then the next hit shook the plane so hard that cracks were put in the window while the Agent thought that his seat was going to get ripped right out of the floor.
Wham! Crash! Thud! The windows shattered completely, muffling the sound of the impacts that followed, and now the plane was spinning around, nearly flipping forward after an impact that knocked the wind out of Leon. Scraaaaaaaaaaaaaape! Sparks were flying outside now as the aircraft slid and bounced along the ground, spinning a bit each time they hit something, and now the frame of the cockpit was barely recognizable. Orange light was coming from behind the broken door into the main cabin… had a fire broke out? It must have, because smoke was filling what was left of the plane, making Leon's eyes water as he started coughing.
Scraaaaaaaaaaaaape! The aircraft slid a bit more, slowly continuing to turn around, but then coming to a sudden stop when it came to rest against something hard… the whole plane tilting in the other direction… and then it was over. Everything except for Leon's racing heart seemed to have stopped, but now the fire in the main cabin was getting closer, and the smoke was getting thicker… he had to get out of there, but… where were the girls? He couldn't see anything at all, and it was getting hard to breathe.
"Harper!" He called, coughing while unbuckling his seatbelt. "Gillette! Where are you?! We… we gotta get out!"