Sofia leaned around. "What'd it look like?"
Micah found the true words.
"Like a machine that's listening back," he said.
Chapter 6: Takeoff
Micah Lawson pressed his forehead against the window and watched Jackson fall into shadow beneath amber runway lights. Flight 417 rolled slowly away from the gate, and every small vibration traveled up through the seat into his bones. He had felt this movement a thousand times in the Sky Lab simulator, but the simulator had never smelled of warm plastic and coffee, nor carried the murmur of a hundred and forty-two real people behind him.
"First time?" Sofia Delgado asked from the row ahead, turning in her seat in row 22. She twisted just enough for him to see one dark eye and a grin.
"Is it that obvious?" Micah said.
"You have been holding that armrest like it owes you money." She nodded at his hand. "Let go. You are supposed to enjoy this part."
He loosened his fingers with an embarrassed laugh. In his jacket pocket, his thumb found the corner of Grandpa Walter's small green notebook and rested there, the way other kids might have held a lucky coin.
At the front, Grace Kim stood with her hands folded, calm as a teacher on the first day of school. She caught Micah's eye as the jet turned onto the runway and gave him a small, steady nod, as if she remembered the boy who had stared into the cockpit doorway during boarding.
Then the captain's voice filled the cabin, warm and unhurried.
"Good evening, folks, this is Captain Daniel Mercer from the flight deck, with First Officer Elena Vasquez beside me. Welcome aboard Meridian Air Flight Four One Seven, Jackson to Chicago O'Hare. We have a smooth climb waiting, a little weather to watch near Tennessee later, and a fine crew to look after you. If this is your first flight — I hope we have a few — this next part is my favorite. Sit back. Listen to her. She loves this."
Micah smiled. She. The captain called the plane she, just like Joe Abernathy did at Sky Lab.
The engines rose — a hum under his shoes, then a deeper growl that filled his ribs and rattled his tray table. The jet surged forward. Lights streaked past in white and red ribbons, faster and faster, until they blurred into lines.
"Okay," Sofia whispered, bracing her own armrest now. "Okay, okay."
"We're fine," Micah said, surprised at how certain he sounded. "Listen. She sounds clean."
The nose lifted. For one impossible breath, weight pressed him deep into the seat — then it vanished. The rumble of wheels fell away. The terminal and parking lots dropped beneath them, neat and miniature and already far away.
They were flying.
Micah let out a sound that was half laugh, half gasp. Beside him, the older woman in 23B crossed herself and then, catching his expression, laughed too.
"You were right," she said. "That was something."
Below, Jackson spread out in a grid of porch lights. Somewhere down there was the house with the peeling blue door, and the Sky Lab trailer where Joe had let him stay late so many nights, practicing checklists until the words lived in his hands. His mother Tanya was not down there tonight. She was already in Chicago, waiting for surgery in the morning, trusting Aunt Denise to meet him, trusting this plane to carry her only son safely over three states in the dark.
Micah touched the window. "We made it off the ground, Mama," he whispered.
The jet banked gently, tilting with a slow grace that made his ears pop. He swallowed hard and felt the pressure clear.
Captain Mercer came back on. "Folks, we are climbing through ten thousand feet. You are free to use your devices, and we will have you up at thirty-eight thousand before long. From up here, Mississippi looks mighty pretty at night."
The seatbelt sign blinked off with a ding. Around Micah, the cabin exhaled. Laptops opened. A baby quieted. Sofia turned around fully, her hair falling over the headrest.
"So?" she said. "Better than you thought?"
"Better than the simulator," Micah admitted. "Joe always said the real thing would feel alive. He was right. You can feel her thinking."
Sofia studied him, curious. "You really love this, don't you? Not just riding in planes. The whole thing."
Micah slipped the green notebook out just far enough to show its worn cover, then put it back. "My grandpa was an Air Force mechanic. He used to say a machine will tell you what is wrong if you listen. I have been listening to pretend ones for three years. Tonight is the first time I get to listen to a real one, all the way to Chicago."