Dateline

New Year's Eve, 1725 local / T plus 11 hours, 25 minutes

LaGuardia Airport, New York

Strange, how life takes a turn just when you've come to turns with your fate. Not half an hour ago, he was prepared to just sit and watch the world go by, seeing the madness and horror from a detached viewpoint, content to just let it all wash over him and happen, until it all stopped.

Now, he felt a spark of hope; that maybe there was a point after all in fighting against the inevitable. Able Stone had done that to him.

When the Large SUV had crashed and rolled over, spilling broken glass and sparks from it's roof as it slid across the concrete, Aaron had acted without thought, just as he had with Cat, who was conscious now and sat up in the small crew room behind the stand where they had taken refuge. He'd run across to the car, saw the two occupants inside hanging from their safety belts, scratched and shocked, but otherwise unhurt.

He helped them out of the wreck, noticing with only a faint shock of surprise that the man, lean and compact, with a closely cropped head of hair and wearing his trademark black leather jacket, was Able Stone. Always in the news, sometimes controversially, other times for having achieved a feat of technical prowess that only a private entrepreneur free to pursue his own could do; rockets, electric cars, ultra-fast underground transit systems. The man was always on social media, vilified and worshipped in equal measure.

Aaron had taken Able and his assistant, who Aaron noticed had managed to grasp a laptop and a small ruck-sack from the wreck, to the crew room. The area around was free of people. Shortly after the shooter had boarded the plane, there had been a mass stampede as people left and ran away, and when the plane crashed near the end of the runway, everyone who hadn't already fled decided that flying was no safer a means to escape the end as just staying put.

Within five minutes of the crew room door shutting, Able had got them all into action. It was amazing. Aaron had seen the genius in action, and it was transforming.

Able had seen, and what he saw was this; an aircraft, APU running, powered up and ready; a pilot, at his disposal to fly it; a ground crew, to assist in getting it ready. The rest had been simple, really.

They came out of the crew room, made their way to the steps and climbed inside the cabin. The interior of the 757 was not pretty. Several people dead, including two hostesses. One injured old man sat calmly in a seat, blood trickling down a leg. 

The door to the flight deck was locked shut, and no amount of banging and calling made it open. The door was marked and scarred by bullets.

Aaron had thought to go back out, plug his headset into the external jack that connected him to the pilot's headset, and pressed the call button. After a while, a frightened voice answered. It was one of the cabin crew, hiding on the flight deck. He was able to calm her, and persuaded her to open the door.

He climbed the steps once more. Cat was already in the pilots seat, running through checklists and pushing various buttons and switches. Able was in the co-pilot's chair. "You want me to push you out?"

Cat paused and looked at him. "You'd do that?" She glanced at Able, then gave Aaron another piercing look. "Hell, ain't you coming with us?"

"Well, I thought... you gotta get pushed back, right? There'll be no way back on once the steps are moved away."

A smile crept over Cat's face. "Just get those steps clear a few feet and get back on board." 

Aaron thought of arguing, then just did as she said. She seemed to know what she was doing, and who was he to argue? He used his key to operate the remote control at the top of the boarding stairs and moved them back a few feet, then jumped the gap into the plane. As he did, the left engine began to spool-up, a rising whine that was joined by a deep roar as fuel was fed into the turbine.

The air hostess who'd been hiding in the flight deck went to close the door. 

"Wait," he said, then went into the cabin and pulled the closest body towards the exit. He looked at the faces of the people sat or stood around him. He was expecting disgust, or anger. But what he thought he saw was relief. 

"Are you gonna chuck me out, too?" asked the old man.

"No sir. Not while while you're still breathing."

The old man smiled. "Okay then. But leave my wife here with me, would you?"

Aaron stopped and looked at the body of the woman in the seat next to the old man. "Sure. But I don't think we can take her at our next stop."

"That's alright son. I wouldn't leave her anyway."

Afterwards, the hostess closed the door and locked it, giving him a smile as she moved past, then went through the cabin, checking the emergency exits hadn't been tampered with.  

He glanced through the window and saw people were coming back, attracted by the sound of the engines and the activity around the plane, no doubt. He hoped the man with the gun wasn't near. Entering the flight deck, he told Cat of what he'd seen.

"As long as they don't get too close to the engines and get sucked in, they can do what they like. Are we ready?" Able nodded, an i-pod on his lap showing the runway layout. "I've always wanted to do this," said Cat, as she engaged reverse thrust on the engines.

As the sound of the engines increased, loose items scattered by the earlier crowds were blasted away, a swirling cloud of dust and debris outside the windows. Baggage trucks moved about in the wind, and several people, waving their arms and shouting were bowled over; spent spinning along the ground into railings and the side of the terminal building as the big airliner reversed out from the stand under it's own power.

Once clear, Cat stopped the plane, then turned it toward the runway. As they taxied out, they were followed by hundreds of stampeding men and women, desperate in their haste to escape. They soon outpaced them.

When they turned onto the runway threshold, they were met by a bizarre sight. A man; the one with the gun, still wearing the silver jacket, was standing on the runway centerline. He was lit up in the glare of the plane's lights, waving the gun and shouting. Cat looked at Able and raised her eyebrows. Able shrugged back. 

Cat pushed the throttles forward and released the brakes.

The last Aaron saw of the silver jacketed man from his vantage point behind Cat was him throwing the gun at the plane, then disappearing under the nose. There was the slightest of bumps, then the plane was powering down the runway, lifted into the air and rose, unhindered and free, into the night sky.