Rogue Element

Indonesian air space, 35 000 feet, 1840 Zulu, Tuesday, 28 April

Joe Light was wired. His video screen was tuned to the news while his fingers worked the keyboard of his laptop. The title track from Blood Soaked Earth crashed through the earphones plugged into a DVD player by his side. He was nervous. He glanced around quickly to see if anyone had been watching. Satisfied, he closed the Internet connection and reopened the game minimised on the toolbar.

Within a few moments he was back in the world he was more comfortable with these days. His right hand gripped a vibrating joystick. On the computer’s screen, millions of colours coalesced to form a grotesque being. Joe smiled as it ripped the head off another warrior. The freakish thing on screen looked familiar. Joe had patched the game with a parasite that allowed him to attach his features to the computer character. He tapped the keys and the monster flexed, swelling its exaggerated pecs, chest and arms to ridiculous proportions.

In the flesh Joe was strong, but he wasn’t muscle-bound. An ex-girlfriend once described him as vaguely handsome in a wiry kind of way, adding that she thought he had a modem for a dick. Joe’s other passion besides technology was boxing. Not the boxercise aerobics favoured by secretaries and marketing execs, but the real thing in real gyms where there wasn’t any piped music or mirrors, and where the air smelled like a sour leather glove.

The game was a new one Joe was reviewing for Dumb Thumb magazine, an on-line/off-line rag that specialised in high-end computer entertainment and technology. Once he had worked his way through it, Joe would crack the cheat codes and post them on his own Internet site. Two sources of income for the one job. Cool. A sweet little earner. There were many streams to Joe’s income, which was why, at twenty-seven, he could afford a holiday to England, flying first-class. Life was good. Yeah.

His fingers flicked over the keys. A hideous mutant flung gobs of its own dung at the warrior-Joe on screen. Instead of dissolving armour, fatigues and skin as it was supposed to, the lethal excretions passed straight through the computer character and melted the wall behind it. Joe noted the keystrokes on his palm pilot and went in search of more cheat codes.

‘Can I get you something to drink, sir?’ asked a flight attendant, leaning forward towards him to catch his answer. Joe had completely forgotten where he was. That often happened when he was on the computer. It was as if his mind became mated with the CPU when his fingers moved over the keys.

‘No, thanks,’ he said, slightly annoyed by the distraction, and went back to the screen.

The rest of the 747 was quiet when Joe woke from a short, fitful sleep, the overhead lights dimmed low. In economy, uncomfortable bundles in grey blankets filled the seats. Occasional arms and heads spilled into the aisles. Here and there passengers drowsily watched video screens. Sleep hung heavily in the warm cabin.

The flight deck was also dark, but nonetheless alert. Captain Andy Flemming, one of Qantas’s most senior captains, wasn’t on the flight deck. He was having a break, retired to the Crew Rest Facilities for a mandatory kip. First Officer Luke Granger, a young-looking bloke with wiry red hair and a round face spattered with freckles, was in command. Second Officer Jenny Rivers was beside him, in the captain’s seat, checking over the radio work that would be needed in the following Flight Information Region when they tracked out of Indonesian, and into Malaysian, airspace.

The door behind them opened. A flight attendant had come to see if they wanted refreshments. Luke turned. ‘How’s it going back there? Under control?’

‘Yeah, since I drugged the coffee,’ said the flight attendant. ‘Get you guys anything?’

‘I’ll have one of those Korean massages where they walk on your back. Or a coffee, whatever’s easiest,’ grinned Luke, glancing over his shoulder.

Flemming pushed through the door behind the flight attendant. Rivers began to lever herself out of the seat. ‘It’s okay, Jenny. I’ll just watch for a while. That weather delay in Sydney has really mucked up my sleep pattern,’ he said, yawning.

The second officer eased back into the captain’s chair. She liked the left-hand seat. She believed it would be hers one day.

‘Tea for me please, Becky,’ said the captain, noting the name on the flight attendant’s lapel badge. ‘And one of those cakes I saw you handing out at dinner to the first-class passengers, if you’ve got one left.’ He reached up and adjusted the temperature on the flight deck down a couple of degrees.

‘And a Coke, thanks,’ mumbled Rivers into her paperwork. The flight attendant made a mental note of the order and left the crew silhouetted against a galaxy of cockpit instruments and switch lights.

Luke allowed himself the luxury of letting his mind wander and compared piloting the 747 to flying an F/A-18 in his alma mater, the Royal Australian Air Force. He had Blu-tacked a small plastic model of the fighter to the windscreen by his shoulder. He peeled it off and examined it — a beautiful, deadly shape. In reality, the commercial stuff was dull. Computers did everything. They flew the plane. They managed the engines. They monitored the frequencies. They maintained the life support system that pressurised the cabin and kept everyone alive. They found the airports the aircraft flew to. They kept a lookout for weather. And if that wasn’t enough, hell, the 747–438 even had auto-landing capabilities. The plane could put itself on mother earth — and did so if the weather was exceptionally bad — touching down on the runway centreline when the computers considered the task beyond human ability.

Of course, the F/A-18 was a pretty smart plane too, but its intelligence was concentrated on finding and killing the enemy. He ‘flew’ the plastic model through the air before parking it back on the windscreen.

The 747 was no F/A-18 but flying one was still better than just about any other job he could think of in civvy street. Luke checked the altimeter. He was not surprised to see that it was reading exactly 35 000 feet. All engine gauges were synchronised and reading normal. It occurred to him that the 747 was like a big factory, and that the factory’s product was lift. He was merely a foreman who monitored gauges and ensured that enough of that product was rolling off the production line to keep the factory in the black: flying.

They were tracking down the FIR loaded before takeoff into the Flight Management Computer. The aircraft’s track was checked automatically and constantly by three Inertial Reference Systems, backed up by two Global Positioning Systems. And if some slight error arose, the IRS would update itself against any and all ground-based radio navigation aids.

The concatenating technological wizardry meant that wandering off track was impossible. Getting from one place to another by the shortest possible route was what commercial flying was all about: minimising the burn of precious fuel. It was flying by the balance sheet. There was no need to double-check their heading but he did so anyway. Spot on. What do you expect? Granger asked himself.

He contemplated the moon just risen above the horizon. It was a dirty yellow dinner plate against a black curtain. The moon’s light had dimmed the surrounding stars but it was a beautiful clear sky. Being up here was something he never tired of, even though there was really nothing to do on these long-haul flights except to concentrate on staying awake. You took in the view, kept checking the instruments you checked fifteen minutes ago, and counted the dollars accumulating in your bank account.

Money, or lack of it. That was the reason he’d left the RAAF. He wasn’t sure it had been such a good decision. He’d been poor in uniform — enough money for beers with the boys and little else — but, shit, he was flying. Really flying. Punching military jets through the blue in vertical climbs that took him from sea level to the blurry edge of space in a couple of minutes. Being paid to dogfight in a multi-million dollar aircraft? Christ, he’d have done it for free.

His wife used to say that he did do it for free. That was her problem. There was never enough money for her. Five years he’d been out of the RAAF now, divorced for three of them. His wife ran off with a stockbroker who earned over a quarter of a million dollars a year, not including bonuses. Karma had burst her little bubble, though. The Internet and the rise of on-line investing had put hundreds of brokers on the street, and his wife’s second husband with them.

He’d heard they’d recently had to sell the Beemer. Luke was not a vengeful person, but he had to admit he was pleased. He’d loved the RAAF, and the fighter with his name stencilled on the fuselage. The woman deserved everything fate dealt her. His eyes unconsciously swept the panel for troublesome numbers but failed to find any.