Brave Fear (boyxboy)

Chapter 28

Zane laughed.

Zane stepped into the cockpit just as Jonas snapped from his trancelike retrieval state. Literally snapped. His head jerked upward and his neck cracked, a sickening noise that echoed too many times. Zane shivered, goosebumps jumping up all over his skin.

The boy scrambled from his chair, dropping to the floor and scooting under a nearby control panel, the one now flashing to indicate the automatic pilot. Zane watched curiously as the tall boy's foot jerked over and over. "What are you doing?" he asked.

Jonas seemed to notice him for the first time. "I know how to turn the autopilot off," he responded, pulling open a hatch that spilled out wires. "I just have to do it fast enough so the information doesn't slip back into the chip." He bit at a wire covering with his teeth, revealing the copper below.

"Why is your foot going crazy?" Zane asked, watching the leg's jerking quicken.

"The microchip is really close to overheating," Jonas told him. "I probably pushed it a little too far, but I really don't want to go back to Father." He slipped a knife from his pocket and sliced a wire. Where he got such a weapon in New Vancouver, Zane would never know. But Jonas did.

"You think you can turn on the manual pilot?"

"There's only one way to find out,"

Jonas cut another wire before splicing the separate ends of each wire, creating two new wires from two old ones. Several sparks flew, but no dangerous shocks were delivered and no fires ignited. But the plane did dip perilously and Zane lost his footing. He heard the engine splutter, and silence filled the air. He fell forward. Or backward. He was quite disoriented. He and Jonas collapsed in a heap, the other boy's lanky legs entangled with his skinny arms and kept Zane locked in positions.

After several tries, they extracted themselves from the floor, the plane now on a downward dive. Zane found himself standing on the windshield and had an extreme moment of vertigo. Jonas was clinging to the pilot seat, trying desperately to click the seat belt together so he could focus his attention on the controls.

Zane watched below him as the jet dove through the clouds and the ocean became visible. He didn't have time to admire it because, in a few moments, he could be a splatter on its surface. "Jonas!" he yelled. Shrieks echoed from the bay, and he only hoped his friends had managed to secure themselves somehow.

"Trying!" Jonas yelled, finally clicking the seat belt and grasping the stick that would control the rudders at the back of the plane. He engaged the engines and jerked the rudder stick backward, the plane slowing its extreme descent and beginning to level out.

Zane yelled, knowing he could do nothing. Jonas gritted his teeth and yanked back on a lever, and then flipped a switch, and then tilted a wheel. Zane had no idea what they did, but they stopped him from becoming fish food, so he was grateful.

As the jet levelled, Zane fell to the floor, his feet leaving the windshield. He hit the metal on his stomach and it forced his breath from his chest. As he gasped for the missing air, Jonas laughed hysterically as his efforts began to pay off, the plane rising higher and higher after a terrifying moment of impending disaster.

"Please don't ever do that again," Zane gasped, pushing himself up onto his elbows.

"You don't enjoy my daredevil stunts?" Jonas asked innocently, wobbling the jet for good measure. Zane shook his head.

A babble of conversation told of the arrival of everyone else. Joseph looked mostly concerned while the others looked slightly pissed. Mallory looked downright murderous. She stalked up to Jonas and leaned forward, right in his face.