Riko’s hair suddenly began to wriggle about in its entirety. I was late to react to the uncanny scene in front of me. Inside of Riko’s hair…something was being operated?
“Stop! What are you doing?!”
I charged at Riko in an attempt to seize her, but at that moment, the plane lurched violently again. It was descending rapidly…! Aria lost her balance and slammed into the wall. It was the best I could do to simply stay on my feet.
“Buh-bye” Riko said as she dashed out of the suite with lightning speed.
I thought it was odd. This plane reeled in Riko’s favor way too often. She probably had a remote control hidden in her hair that she was using to control the plane. ANA flight six hundred was losing altitude at an alarming rate as it descended among the clouds of a typhoon.
What is she planning to do by decreasing the plane’s altitude this much?
I raced through the corridor surrounded by the screams of the other passengers and went down the stairs. Riko was standing with her back against a window in the corner of the bar.
“Where do you think you’re going to run to in a small plane like this, my little squirrel?” I threw back at Riko the same words she used earlier as I pointed the Government at her.
“Hee hee. Kinji, I’d advise you not to come any closer than that,” Riko smiled, showing off her white teeth. Clay-like objects—most likely bombs—were taped to the wall, forming a circle around Riko. “As you know, being the ‘Butei killer’, I specialize in bombs.”
Seeing me stop, Riko gathered the hem of her skirt in her hands and raised it slightly, bowing to me in feigned politeness.
“Say, Kinji. Want to come over to the heaven on earth known as IU? Bringing one person along wouldn’t be a problem. I could take you with me. You know, in IU…” Riko narrowed her eyes. “…you’ll find your brother.”
I don’t believe this girl. She’s desecrating the memory of my brother again.
“Don't make me any angrier than I already am. Mark my words, Riko. Mention my brother again and I just might violate Article Nine on impulse. That would result in an undesirable conclusion for both of us, wouldn’t you say?”
Butei law, Article Nine, “Under no circumstances shall a Butei kill another person while operating as a Butei.” “Ah. We can’t have that. I need you to remain a Butei,” said Riko winking at me and wrapping both of her arms around her body. “Let Aria know that we’ll welcome the two of you anytime, then.”
Boooooooom!
Without warning, Riko detonated the blasting charges behind her.
“…!”
A circular hole had opened in the wall and Riko used it to leap outside of the plane. And she did so without a parachute…!
“Ri-…!”
I tried to shout out her name, but I couldn’t. The air within the room was rushing towards the window as if it were being sucked out by a giant vacuum cleaner. The alarms inside the plane blared, and oxygen masks fell from the ceiling like an avalanche. All the various objects in the bar were sent flying towards the gaping hole—paper, tablecloths, glasses, wine bottles…me.
“…!”
I grabbed onto a stool that was fixed to the floor, and the plane’s automated systems started to scatter about fire extinguishing substances and sheets of silicon from the ceiling. Those adhesive sheets, which were like birdlime, amassed in mid-air and closed off the hole Riko made just like a spider web. Reaching out to a nearby window, I pulled myself up and looked outside. What I saw in the faint moonlight was Riko drifting farther and farther away as she spun in circles like a dancer with the sky as her stage. I watched as Riko unraveled the ribbon on her back, causing her excessively large skirt and blouse to transform into an awkward looking parachute. The last I saw of her was when she waved her hand in my direction and vanished into the clouds with nothing on but her undergarments.
I see now. She lowered the plane’s altitude this far so she could make her escape.
“…?!”
There were two flashes of light that showed up from behind the clouds Riko had just disappeared into, and they were heading this way at a ridiculously fast speed. My hysteria mode-enhanced eyes closed in on the objects.
You…you gotta be kidding me. Missiles?!
Boooooooooom!!
A devastating sound thundered, and ANA flight six hundred experienced the most sever oscillations of its flight. The impact was clearly unlike something caused by a gust of wind or lightning. It was like the plane had been struck twice by a giant hammer.
“…!”
I hung onto the window as if my life depended on it. Then I looked towards the wings of the plane, praying that they would still be there. It had taken one nightmarish beating after another, but ANA flight six hundred managed to be holding up. There were two jet engines situated on each of its wings, and the inner engine of each pair had been destroyed, but the remaining outer engines were intact. The plane was just barely staying airborne as smoke trailed behind it like shed blood. I was still feeling dizzy due to the sudden drop in air pressure, but I had to hurry to the cockpit. ANA flight six hundred might have withstood the missile attack, but it was still continuing its rapid decent.
The captain and co-pilot seemed to have been hit with tranquilizer darts courtesy of Riko, for they both were unconscious.
“…What took you so long?!” Aria, who I presumed entered the cockpit by using the IC chip embedded keys she took off the pilots, turned around and screamed at me while bearing her tooth when I arrived. At her feet lay an odd piece of equipment which resembled the barbette that had been attached to the Segways. It appeared to be the remains of a device Aria dismantled—the one Riko installed for the purpose of controlling the plane remotely via the controller she had hidden in her hair. Aria fit her small body snuggly into the pilot’s seat and took hold of the steering wheel-shaped control column.
“Aria, can you pilot an airplane?”
“I could if it were a Cessna. I’ve never flown a jet plane before.”
She pulled back on the control column with so much force and so little hesitation that I had trouble expelling a few doubts in my mind. ANA flight six hundred responded by elevating its nose as if it had suddenly woken up from a slumber.
“I can control the planes altitude and direction, but…”
“Can you land?”
“No.”
“…I see.”
I could tell that the plane was flying horizontally. Returning my attention to the window, which was streaked with heavy rainfall, I noticed the plane was flying so close to the ocean surface that a chill ran down my spine. It couldn’t have been much more than three hundred meters in the air. It was a perilous situation. I sat down in the other chair and upon finding the radio, switched from intercom to speaker.
“…Please respond…thirty-one. I repeat. This is Haneda Control Tower. ANA flight six hundred, respond on emergency communication frequency one twenty-seven six thirty-one. I repeat. One twenty-seven six thirty-one. Please respond.”
Their communication came through. I turned on the microphone that was installed on the instrument board.
“…This is flight six hundred. The plane was hijacked moments ago, but we’ve managed to regain control. The captain and co-pilot are incapacitated. Currently, we two Butei who were passengers on the flight are piloting the plane. My name is Kinji Tohyama. The other is Aria H. Kanzaki.”
The voices of the people at Haneda were mixed with both relief and surprise in response to my statement.
Great. For the time being, at least we’ve established a connection with the control tower.
I then proceeded to make use of the satellite phone I took off the captain’s belt a short while ago. This type of phone, which was very similar in appearance to a cell phone, was also used in maritime communications, so it was capable of making a connection to a phone line via satellite no matter where you called from or at what speed you were traveling. As I started making the call, I connected the phone to the speaker using Bluetooth. I was still in hysteria mode. Everything I needed to do came to mind in perfect order.
“Who are you calling?”
Aria’s question was answered by the new voice that came from the speaker.