The plane ride was silent. We were all looking back at that morning's disaster. The plane ride took 6 hours. And the whole time I was feeling bad about myself. Everyone was doing the same.
"Wanna talk?" Zoe finally broke the silence to me. Yet I didn't. Instead, I shook my head. She sighed and went back to playing on her phone. I leaned back.
"This is your pilot, we will be landing shortly. Thank you." That's all the pilot said before the radio went static. Immediately we braced ourselves, waiting for a SPYDER agent to bust down the door to the cockpit waving a pistol in the air and saying, "This plane is now under SPYDER's control."
But that's not what happened.
Instead the attendee asked if we wanted a glass of water.
That's when it hit me.
"No thanks." I told her. Then I turned towards Erica. She just nodded knowingly.
"Don't worry, I got us covered." She said. She walked to the bathroom. "You know how to fly a plane?"
"Kind of."
"Good enough."
Even though the CIA admitted we probably will never need to know how to fly a plane, they still taught us.
"If you're flying over the Yucatan and your pilots turn out to be SPYDER agents and they bail out. And you need to land the plane in a lake full of crocodiles. Knowing how to fly a plane would help, a lot." Our flight instructor told us. I brushed it off, he was known to be losing his mind. Yet when that exact scenario happened to me on the last mission, I polished my flight skills.
That was going to help a lot.
I walked into the cockpit. I checked both of the pilot's pulses. Nothing. There wasn't a single mark on their bodies. Poison, as I had suspected. I could only hope that Erica would brew the antidote before I dropped dead on the ground, joining the pilots.
I shoved the main pilot off of his seat. Looking down onto the controls I realized that it was more complicated than anything I had ever flown. By a factor of trillions. I gulped as much air as I could, hoping that would calm me down.
It didn't. I turned on auto pilot with such delicacy that it would make a mother holding her newborn look as if she was strangling it. It was at that point when Erica walked in and held up the antidote. I snatched it and took it all in one gulp. She just smiled and walked back out. She was gone as quickly as she came.
The few people that were on the plane and not in the CIA busted down the door.
"What's going on?" The man said. He then saw the two bodies on the old, rusted floor. "Oh my god!" He screamed. I winced. "D-DID YOU KILL THEM?"
"No, this was from poison and an evil organization did this." I rushed to explain it.
"You lie!" The man said. He was now flexing his non-existent mussels for the girls who had also entered the cockpit. "I'm giving you one chance to tell the truth, and then I will not refrain from punishing you!"
"I am!" I exclaimed, not knowing how to calm them down. "I am telling the-"
"Ok, that's it." The man said, he ran up to me. I jumped out of the seat. The man ran into the controls. He yelped loudly. I picked him up and threw him out of the cockpit. It was apparent that we both were extremely weak and had no fighting experience. But I was more desperate than him, which gave me the upper hand.
"What's going on?" Erica walked in once more. Everyone shuffled out of her way. She had such a commanding arora around her that it persuaded people to move without her lifting a finger. Or uttering a word.
"The guy just ran up to me, I had no choice!" I hoped she would believe me.
"Why would he do that?" She asked me.
"Because he killed the pilots!" A girl not much younger that Erica said. The girl pointed her finger at the pilots, as if Erica couldn't see them already. "See?"
Erica mulled over them, pretending she was seeing them for the first time.
"Well? Do something!" Someone from the tiny crowd said.
"This certainly is a pickle." Erica said. She turned to me. "Did you kill them?"
I said, "No, of course not!" She sold it so well for a second I thought she had actually thought I had killed them.
"Well there you have it." She said. She started to move back.
"Wait, your not going to do anything?" Someone from the crowd asked.
"Well he seems to be telling the truth. Also, I have to point out. He's a kid!" Erica replied. Somewhat annoyed. She moved to take over the controls. "All of you, out. Except you." She pointed to me.
To my surprise, the people moved and soon we were all alone.
"Thanks." I told her. She put on her headset.
"Get in the co-pilot. I'm gonna need you." Erica said. I took the seat and put on my headset. "You did just great. This is all just great." She murmured. In all the confusion, she must've thought I couldn't hear it. I should've kept my mouth shut. But I didn't.
"Ok, this isn't my fault." I told her.
"Sure, sure. Nothing is ever your fault." Erica said. The tone was even nicer than usual.
"Are you blaming me for this?" I asked her. She gave me her signature stare. Even though I had seen it a million times it still chilled me to my core.
"No. No. Of course not." She said. Really fast. Too fast. I knew that I should've stopped at that time as well. But again, my mouth jumped the gun and spoke before my brain would have given it any orders.
"You seem a bit more annoyed than usual." I said. To the ice queen. I winced.
"Yeah, a lot to be annoyed about what with the school and everything." She tried to sell it as best as she could. But emotion slipped through. It didn't annoy her. Something else did.
But I didn't push it.
We landed the plane an hour later. A sigh of relief hurled through the passengers. Yet we knew we were not done yet.
We exited the airport and immediately figured out where we were. Colorado.
We hailed a cab and went up to the mountains.
"Can you tell us why we can't just stay in a hotel?" I asked Erica as we got out of the cab.
"SPYDER could find us easier there." She replied.
It was at that moment when a machine gun fired.
