A Scripta

"Flying a plane is harder than flying a chopper."

Mickey looked across the table at his girlfriend, Swan. He smiled over his smoked salmon. "We've had this argument before, hon."

"How about we prove it?"

"And how do we go about doing that?"

"You take me up. Unofficially."

He gazed at her. "You're crazy."

"I bet I could get Ginny to get you onto a plane. Doesn't take much to switch seats."

"Swan, hon, it'll mean my wings. Our wings."

"Unofficial training exercise."

Swan was relentless. Persistent. Which was how she got to be a pilot in the first place. She flew an F-16. His specialty was Pave Lows, though he had flown many helicopters to and from many Navy vessels, both in calm Atlantic waters and bomb-strewn Middle Rastern bays.

Finally, on July 3, when most of the base was heading out to party, Swan put him in her F-16. After first having sex with him in the front seat, she got clearance to have him take the plane up and out.

The differences he found was that there was both a wingspan and that this machine could not move vertically. Aiming toward the mountains in Colorado, she had to constantly remind him to pull up.

"So what do you think? Easier?"

"I wouldn't necessarily say 'easier'. I don't see anyone come at me so I don't know if I could get into a dogfight."

Swan laughed. "There won't be any dogfights here."

However, he didn't take into account a working terrorist cell, that was just waiting for a single plane to come through a flight path, nor did he take into account that this terrorist cell just may have a Javelin SAM...

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"Lieutenant?"

"Yeah." It came out as a moan. He hurt everywhere. He opened his eyes to see nothing.

"Lieutenant, can you hear me?"

"Yeah."

"Lieutenant, you were in an accident."

He moaned. The plane. The fire. Screaming. Crash.

"We recovered you and parts of your gunner."

Swan.

"We rebuilt you - most of you - so you'll be all right in a few days."

Then the voice dropped before he faded out of consciousness again. "You work for us now."

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Who does he work for? Even he's not sure. This was his last lucid moment. He was spoken to without response and thrown out of the lab with the nightgown on his back. He didn't much care for his face because of the burns, so he killed someone for a helmet. His own body is a combination of male and female parts. All of his weapons and clothing come from scrounging, except from now on, when the whole concept of "selling" and "buying" and "auctions" will either blow his mind further or make him hyperfocus and become an auction-house demon.

It remains to be seen.