"Zariah, sit down!"
"Aunt Danielle." She looked at her aunt directly. "I need to see what's happening. Please don't stop me."
Danielle looked at her face. Whatever she saw there—the stillness in it, the focus—made her let go. Just for a second. Just enough.
Zariah moved up the aisle. The cockpit door was still open. Gerald was just inside, and Keely had pushed past him. Zariah reached the threshold and looked in.
The captain was in the left seat, slumped forward against the yoke. Not unconscious in the way of sleep: slumped in a heavy, wrong way, his full weight pressing against the control column, which was part of why the nose was down. The first officer was back in his seat, head tilted, face slack, both hands fallen away from the side stick; his right arm had slid down to hang at his side.
The instrument panel was a landscape of warnings: red flags across multiple systems. The altitude was unwinding: they were descending through 19,000 feet, and the rate was not small.
Keely was pulling the captain back from the yoke with both hands, trying to get his weight off the control column. She managed it; the nose attitude improved fractionally, but the moment she let go to reach for the radio, he slumped forward again.
"Hold him back," Gerald said, taking Keely's place. "Both hands. Don't let go." He reached for the radio himself. "Mayday, mayday, mayday." His voice was trained-steady, the words coming out in the correct sequence. "This is flight—"
The radio crackled: static, a voice breaking through in fragments. The plane's descent hadn't stopped.
The man from the worn jacket—the engineer—had come up the aisle behind Zariah without her hearing him. She sensed him before she saw him. And when she turned, he was right there, looking past her into the cockpit with the expression of someone doing rapid calculations.
"Both of them," he said—not to her, to the situation.
"Yes," she said.
He looked at her. "You know aircraft systems?"
"Yes."
He didn't waste time asking follow-up questions. He stepped to the cockpit door. "I'm an off-duty maintenance engineer. Let me in. I can help."