Luke Morris stared, amazed, at the stream of images being broadcast from all over town. Fires, riots, looting, fistfights... he hadn't seen so much chaos since he'd been in the war. It all seemed impossible... people switching bodies? Things like that didn't happen in real life. But if this was some sort of prank, it was the most elaborate prank he'd ever seen. The footage looked real, and the interviewees--he'd listened to dozens of them by now--all seemed absolutely sincere. No, this was real, as impossible as it all seemed.
He was glad Judith and the kids were out of town. The swaps only seemed to extend a few miles beyond city limits, so they were safe from their effects. Judith was visiting her parents for the weekend, and she had brought the children with her; Luke was supposed to work this weekend, though, so he'd stayed behind. Now, though, he wished he'd decided to skip work and go with them. So far he still had his own body, but he knew it couldn't last long. He'd shut himself inside the house so he wouldn't be at risk of accidentally coming into contact with someone who'd swapped, but he knew it was only a matter of time before he got snatched up, too.
He'd talked to Judith over the phone... she had tried to urge Luke to leave town, but judging from the television, that wasn't really an option. The roads were a mess... given how many people had swapped while driving, there were dozens of traffic accidents all over town, and with the police, hospitals, and fire department already stretched incredibly thin--not to mention the towing companies--there hadn't been much opportunity to clear up all of those accidents. That left many roads out of town all but blocked. Highway 5 going east out of town was apparently blocked off entirely due to a riot at the prison. Indeed, the police were now advising that people stay off the roads entirely, for fear of more people swapping and wrecking. They had a point, Luke reflected; it was better to get swapped than to be seriously wounded in a traffic accident. As a member of the air force who had been stationed in one of the ugliest parts of the world, Luke knew all about calculating risks.
There had been some initial efforts to evacuate the town, but then the mayor and most of his staff had been swapped. The mayor's staff was beginning to reconvene at city hall, but the mayor was still missing. Without leadership, the evacuation hadn't really gotten off the ground yet... Luke doubted it would come together anyway, though, given the state of the roads. Besides, with people switching at a steady pace, and the struggling to reunite with their familities, keeping everyone together would be a logistical nightmare. Perhaps the twon could carry people out in buses, but even that was risky... if one person in the crowd got switched, chances are they would bump into someone else accidentally, who would then bump into someoe else, and so on. And it seemed like every time a whole crowd of people was swapped all at once, it led to a mob situation. No, Luke doubted a formal evacuation effort would ever manifest. A number of people, according to the news, were trying to leave town on their own, but that was just making the traffic situation even worse. So at this point, despite whatever was happening in town, Luke knew he was better off staying at home.
He stood and sighed. Rubbing his face and stretching, he headed toward the kitchen. So far he'd avoided drinking any alcohol, in case he was unlucky enough to be switched into someone behind the wheel of a car... but he really needed a beer. One or two couldn't hurt too much, he thought, so he opened the refrigerator and reached inside...
...before he could wrap his hands around a can, though, the kitchen vanished in a flash of light, and he knew it had finally come.
"--emain calm, people... we're passing over the city again, so things might start getting pretty crazy again in a minute, but we'll get through this if everyone just stays calm."
Luke took in the scene around him. He was wearing shorts and a Transformers t-shirt, and there was a portable video game device in his hand; the outfit looked like something that Chase, his seven-year-old son, might wear. He was sitting in a cramped seat, staring at the back of another seat. There were two identical seats to his right, and across a narrow aisle from him was another trio of seats. And there were sets of these seats stretching far up ahead of him, in two neat rows, down a cylindrical corridor. At first Luke thought he might have been sitting in a bus, but then he realized that the vehicle he was in was not shaking the way a bus driving along an asphalt road should. No, he recognized the characteristically smooh motion of this vehicle. He was in an airplane.
At the front of the airplane, there was someone in a pilot's uniform speaking loudly in a rather hoarse voice. Luke wondered why the pilot was out here intead of in the cockpit, but his attention was more immediately caught up by the woman sitting next to him, whose hand was around his own hand. The woman said, loudly and abruptly, "Where am I? What am I wearing?" She turned to Luke and let go of his hand, saying, with a sneer, "And who the fuck are you?"
The airplane was beginning to burst into a rumble of confusion, but Luke tried to focus on the pilot's words. "--f you've just arrived here," the pilot said, "then you're probably already aware of what's happening down below us. If not, you should be aware that you have just switched places with someone else. It's been happening all day; most of the people here have already been switched, but you have just been swapped into one of the few remaining unswapped bodies among us. And I regret to inform you that you've been swapped into an airplane."
The rumble of the plane's passengers grew louder, and the pilot raised his voice to try to speak over it. "And I'm sorry to say that the airplane currently doesn't have a pilot. I know I'm dressed like a pilot, but I don't know how to fly this plane; in actuality, I'm a law student. Now, I want everyone to remain calm, but--" But they didn't remain calm. Several of the people sitting around Luke broke into screams, including the woman next to him. The man in the pilot's uniform tried to speak over the commotion, but he was having trouble speaking loud enough. Luke was able to make out one sentence very clearly, though: "Is any of you a pilot?"
At that Chase unbuckled the seat belt around his waist and leapt to his feet. Striding to the front of the plane, he grabbed the arm of the man in the pilot's uniform and said, "I'm a pilot."
The man looked at him in surprise. "You are?"
"I've never flown a commercial jet before," Luke said, "but I've been reading up on it for the last few years; I've been wanting to get certification for commercial flights. And I've flown before... I flew fighter jets and troop transports in the war, so I know the basics. I should know enough to get us on the ground, with a little luck."
"Oh, thank God," the other man said quietly. "People!" he shouted, lifting Luke's arm and turning him to the crowd. "We have pilot!"
And suddenly the agitated shouting at the back of the plane gave way to cheers.
Together, Luke and the man in the pilot's uniform entered the cockpit. There was another man in a pilot's uniform huddled in the corner. The other pilot looked up at Luke hopefully. "You're serious?" he said. "You can land us?"
"I hope so," Luke said, taking a seat at the plane's controls.
"We're flying pretty steady right now," said the first 'pilot'. "The pilots who were flying this plane before Allison and I switched into them must have been turning the airplane, because we've been flying in a big circle over town for the last hour and a half. This is our fourth pass over town."
"We haven't touched the controls," said the other 'pilot', who must have been Allison. "We didn't want to screw up anything since we seemed to be flying level with the ground."
"Good," Luke muttered, trying to decipher the control panel before him. The fact that the plane had been level, and that they had left the controls alone, was probably the only thing that had saved these people's lives. Luke knew the plane wouldn't be able to stay airborne for much longer, though; over the last hour and a half it had been burning fuel unnecessarily, which meant its tanks were probably running low. Indeed, a glance at the fuel gauge indicated Luke was right. He was going to have to land this plane soon.
So, settling down ito the pilot's seat, he placed his hands on the controls and got to work.
