It is the year 2010. The Winter Olympics are being held at Whistler. Dr. Rapport has tickets to watch the ski jumping, and is at the moment of writing, jetting back to Vancouver from Taiwan, where he had been treating a difficult case. A teacher thought he was a watermelon. For many a long year, it promised to remain the strangest case the doctor had ever encountered. The aircraft was a brand new Boeing 780, a new cone shaped aircraft that approached the speed of sound. It could fly at 723 nautical miles per hour. The speed of sound is, as you should very well know, 753 nautical miles per hour at standard temperature and pressure whatever that may be. If an aircraft were to fly at the speed of sound it would probably disintegrate. The reader may think that the type of aircraft is not germane to the story In this case, it is fitting to mention the specific model of aircraft because the Boeing 780, is the only aircraft that can fly from Taiwan to Vancouver in under eight hours.
If the airplane had taken so much as an additional twenty minutes to reach Vancouver, virtually all of the passengers would have died due to a dastardly deed perpetrated upon them by an evil-minded psychopathic genius, who played a pivotal role in this little drama that is being unveiled in front of you for your edification. In all other respects the flight was routine.
The first clue that something was somewhat amiss, was the announcement over the intercom, from the flight deck. In itself it was an entirely innocent announcement.
The captain merely said, “Flight Attendants. Cross Check.”
For some reason the captain’s microphone button stayed open but nothing untoward was said.
The tower was heard to say: “Flight Seven Cleared for Takeoff. Report Outbound One Six Zero.”
“Flight Seven Rolling. One Six Zero,” the first officer said as the wheels began to turn.
The wheels in Doctor Rapport’s head began to spin. There was something, if not sinister, at least disturbing about the captain’s announcement. He couldn’t put it all together . Then he realized what it was. Well, he didn’t realize exactly what it was but he did know that the uneasiness stemmed from his period of amnesia many years ago. At least that was a start. Being in First Class, the doctor was offered a hot towel. He took it absent-mindedly and then had a flashback, a memory resurrection that had something to do with delusion. The thing that had triggered the memory was the heated towel, which had an effect that was similar to the effect of the poison that had been administered to him many many years ago. He was not deluded. He was on the right track. He paused for a moment, expectant, as there was a bit of static crackle in the air.
“Flight Seven reporting One Six Zero Outbound.”
Obviously the captain’s microphone was still stuck open.
“Flight Seven. You are cleared to Flight Level Three Five Zero. Report Clearing Two Six Zero.”
“Flight Seven Report Clearing Two Six Zero.”
The doctor thanked his lucky stars that the captain had not passed off the communications duties to his first officer for he had now pinpointed who the captain must surely be. It couldn’t be, he told himself. Who would ever give a person who had disturbed perceptions the job of flying an aircraft across the Pacific with three hundred and eighty souls on board? The doctor maintained a sense of grace under pressure. He knew that he had to remain calm because there was not a damn thing he could do about the situation.
The doctor got out his notes on his former patient that he now believed was flying the aircraft and went through them with a fine tooth comb. Yep, he mumbled to himself. There is something wrong with that guy’s hypothalamus. It is the way the hypothalamus governs the endocrine system that is the cause of his aberrant behavior. Before the doctor calculated the odds, he had to determine if the captain was indeed the person who had been his patient many moons ago.
When the flight attendant, a tasty dish if there ever was one, the doctor admonished himself for such impure thoughts, as if a young gorgeous Eurasian woman would ever find an elderly man attractive, well I do have a Mercedes convertible, he tried to convince himself, although he knew if would be much more to the point to convince her, and that would undoubtedly prove to be an impossibility. He chastised himself a second time and then gathered his thoughts.
“The captain,” he said hesitantly, “Has he been flying with this airline a long time?
“Oh yes, indeed,” the flight attendant, whose name was Mei Mei, said. “He’s been flying with Mensa Airlines for almost ten years. He’s a very respected pilot. Before that he was flying the Concorde for British Airways. But you know they grounded them, so that’s when Mensa picked him up.”
“Oh, I see,” said the doctor. “Tell me, don’t the captains usually introduce themselves, when they make announcements?” he asked.
“Usually but today there was a bit of a rush to get us cleared because apparently, the police wanted to close the airport due to the presence of some guy who had delusions of grandeur. They were in the process of searching for him as we were being pushed back from the gate. We made it in the nick of time. We could have been stuck there for another four or five hours and we couldn’t have that, now could we?”