The Langoliers Page #3

You've got 10 people on this airplane

and your job's the same as it ever was:

To get them down in one piece.

You don't have to tell me

what my job is.

Well, I'm afraid I just did.

You look a damn sight better now.

What do you do for a living, Nick?

And don't tell me

you're an accountant.

Junior attach,

British Embassy, old man.

My aunt's hat.

Well, that's what it says

on my papers.

And if it said anything else, I suppose

it would be Her Majesty's Mechanic.

I fix things that need fixing.

Right now that means you.

Thank you, but I'm fixed.

Good enough, then.

What do you intend to do?

Can you navigate without

these ground-beam thingies?

Can you avoid other aircraft?

I can navigate just fine

with the onboard equipment.

As for other planes,

this thing right over here,

that says there are no other planes.

Well, we don't have to worry about

running into anybody then, do we?

So, what do we do now?

On to Boston?

Logan? At dawn?

One of the busiest airports

with no idea what's going on

in the country below us? No way.

No, we're heading to Bangor, Maine.

I think it's time

to tell the passengers.

The few that are left anyway.

Would one of you gentlemen

kindly tell me

what's happened to all

the service personnel?

I've had a lovely nap,

but where did everybody go?

But it doesn't make any sense.

Where did everybody go?

I don't know, but perhaps...

Ladies and gentlemen,

this is the captain.

- Captain, my butt.

- Hey, shut up.

As you know, we have an extremely

odd situation on our hands here.

We have no cockpit-to-ground

communication.

And about five minutes ago,

we should have been able to see

the lights of Denver clearly

from the airplane.

We couldn't.

Now, all of that is bad news.

The good news is this:

The plane is undamaged,

we have plenty of fuel,

and I am qualified

to fly this make and model.

The last thing I wanna pass on to you

is that our destination

- will now be Bangor, Maine.

- What?

Our in-flight navigation equipment

is in five-by-five working order,

but I can't say the same

for our navigational beams.

Under the circumstances,

Bangor International Airport

will be our safest bet.

I have an important business meeting

in Boston this morning at 9:00!

And I forbid you

to fly us into some whistle-stop

Maine airport!

- Do you hear me?

- Would you please be quiet?

You're scaring the little girl.

Scaring the little girl?

Scaring the little girl?

Lady, we're diverting to some tin-pot

airport in the middle of nowhere,

and I've got better things

to think about

than scaring the little girl!

Why don't you just sit down

and shut up,

or I'm gonna pop you one?

I don't think you could do it

alone, bud.

He won't have to.

I'll take a swing at you myself

if you don't shut up.

I'm real scared now.

I'll help them if you don't stop it, mister.

I really will.

Okay.

Okay, fine.

You're all against me.

That's fine.

That's fine.

It doesn't have to be this way,

mister.

You should just relax

and take it easy.

Anyone here know how to work

this little oven up in the galley?

I didn't think so.

That man was just upset, you know?

He's better now.

We all look like monsters to him.

No, I'm sure we don't.

Now, what made you say that?

I hear things sometimes.

People's thoughts.

I always have.

But just now, for the first time,

I saw what that man was seeing.

It was dark and fuzzy, but I still saw.

Sweetie, that's just your imagination,

that's all.

That's what my aunt

used to say too.

But it's not.

Why don't you get some sleep?

You'll feel a whole lot better.

No, I won't.

Besides, I was asleep

and now I'm all slept out.

Do you see anything?

I didn't think so.

May I ask you something?

Did you happen to hear anything

the little girl said earlier?

- No.

- Well, she was telling Miss Stevenson

she didn't think

she could go to sleep

because she had

already been asleep.

I also had been asleep.

What about you, dear boy?

What about me what?

Were you sleeping?

You were, weren't you?

- Well, yeah.

- Yes.

We were all asleep. Everybody.

- Well, maybe.

- Nonsense, "maybe."

I'm a mystery writer,

deduction is my bread and butter.

Don't you think

if someone had been awake

when all those people

were eliminated,

that that person would have screamed

bloody murder

and awakened the rest of us?

- Well, I guess so.

- Of course.

So I deduce that everyone

was asleep,

including all those people

that were subtracted,

along with the flight crew,

of course, dear boy.

Could you call me Albert, please,

Mr. Jenkins?

- That's my name.

- Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, of course.

Yes, I'm upset, and when I'm upset,

I tend to get a little patronizing.

Please, forgive me. It's just

that I'm trying to figure this thing out.

Well, do you have any ideas?

Well, if it were just the plane,

I could easily come up with a scenario.

What scenario?

Oh, well, let's say, for instance,

that some shadowy government

organization

decided to conduct an experiment

and we were the test subjects.

And the purpose

of such an experiment,

given the circumstances,

would be to document the effect

of serious emotional stress

on a number of ordinary Americans.

And the scientist

who designed the experiment

loads the oxygen system

of this plane

with an odourless hypnotic gas.

After this is released into the air,

everyone falls asleep,

with the obvious exception

of the pilot,

who is breathing uncontaminated air

through a mask.

Then the captain lands the plane

at a secret airstrip,

in Nevada, let's say,

whereupon, with the exception of the

nine randomly chosen test subjects,

all the sleeping passengers

are carefully carried off the plane

and placed aboard

another identical plane.

The captain then gets Flight 29

airborne again

and returns it

to its original altitude and heading.

He activates the autopilot,

he disables the radio systems.

And then as the effect of the gas

begins to wear off,

the captain hears on his intercom

the voice of the little blind girl

calling for her aunt,

and he knows

that this will wake the others.

The experiment is about to begin.

Captain Engle is one of them?

Well, in this scenario he is.

If Captain Engle is one of the people

who did this,

we're gonna have to capture him

as soon as we land.

You, me, Mr. Gaffney

and perhaps that British fellow.

But it doesn't hold up, you know?

- What?

- The scenario I just gave you,

it doesn't hold up.

- But you just said...

- What I said was,

if it were just this plane,

I could give you a scenario.

But unfortunately,

it's not just this plane.

The city of Denver is probably

still down there,

but all its lights were off if it was.

And it's not just Denver,

I can tell you that.

Omaha, Des Moines, St. Louis,

there isn't a trace of any of them

down there either.

Now, what has happened

has not just happened on this plane.

And that's where deduction

breaks down.

St. Louis Center, come in, please.

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