The Outlier
He’d always had a big heart. But when it jumped out of his chest for the last time as he hit the water after falling from the plane, those who found him would see just how big. Many of his friends had been successful in stowing themselves away in the wheel wells of the new Nimbus fleet, which had found itself with the curious design flaw of allowing humans to survive inside at extreme temperatures. The internet was rampant with theories behind how such a flaw might have happened, and drew upon what they could find of the secretive design team and their imagined appetite for helping refugees and those seeking refuge from the world’s conflicts. Why else would the plane’s wheels need heating components during a flight? Why else would the garbage disposal for the catering be routed through the wheel well with a convenient gap in the piping small enough to allow a hand to grab what passed by? Why was security so casual at the gate between the departure doors and those wishing fond farewells to loved ones?
A black market of wheel well travelers had established itself in the darker reaches of the online communities seeking to help those relocated through war. It was a lot safer than attempting the crossings by sea, and for those who sought to profit from the program, a lot more lucrative. Stowaways, known as well wishers, would travel in pairs, not just because they’d be required to huddle together for warmth, but because they would need each other’s help to scale the wheels and their supporting infrastructure in the first place. It couldn’t be done alone. So when two brothers from Senegal decided to sign up in hopes of fleeing their country’s civil war, the problem was only one of finding the money and the will to make it happen. A life in California was one they’d only dreamed about in the movies, and this was their chance. Over time, they’d managed to scrape enough savings together, the final straw being the sale of their small family house. It would be enough, and they would take their chances.
They’d been targeted by those online who knew how to exploit the vulnerable. And in the targeting they’d been offered the opportunity to begin again in the new world. They wired the money, and waited. The confirmation came a few days later, and a date set. They’d meet an unidentified man wearing a white suit at the exit to gate four, and from there they would be hurried through the open security door, conveniently left open through bribe and favor. The new class of Nimbus aircraft, still carrying many of its ‘Made in China’ component labeling, not quite rid of its new plane smell, would taxi to the gate, where upon they’d help each other climb up one of the rear wheels and into the expectant vacant well.
Here they’d wait for hours before the plane would start to rumble, and the journey to freedom would begin. Their hearts pounded in their chests as they heard the low muffled voices of those above them settle and go through the safety announcements. A complementary food service would be provided during the flight, as well as additional beverages for nominal fees. Pounding faster. The engine turned from a rumble to a roar. Faster. Faster. This was it. The roar to a scream. Let’s go. The scream to the deafening cacophony of millions of dollars of Nimbus investment heaving the plane into the sky. Then dead silence. They were airborne, and the brothers had made it this far. The cold began to grip them, and the tablets they’d taken for air sickness and the hypothermia which was expected to happen began to do their work. The brothers passed out at 20,000 feet just as the seatbelt signs were turned off.
The descent into Los Angeles was far more turbulent than the brothers had been told. They became violently sick as they decompressed to lower altitudes, and their hearts began to experience a severe, stabbing pain. Through a crack in the well, they could see the palm trees and swimming pools they’d only dreamed of. But as the descent became a landing sequence, it was clear something wasn’t right. The wheel wells had become dangerously icy during the flight, and as the plane began to lower its landing gear, the ice became a slide. The small space they’d been using since take-off retracted, and in terror they fell, grasping only at the warm clear air of their dreams.
The wheel well wasn’t a design flaw after all. It was deliberately implemented by the Nimbus engineers, in concert with the people trafficking groups who found their passengers, to scoop up subjects from the third world for forensic experimentation in the first. They would systematically discharge their stowaways at strategic moments during the landing sequence, gathering up whatever was left after they’d hit the ground, and ship the remnants to the nearby VitalBiotics laboratory, where the internal organs would be harvested for future generative artificial intelligence experimentation. The partnership between Nimbus and VitalBiotics had remained a secret for many years, hidden in the anonymity of their subjects, but today would be different. Today would be the first day that one of their subjects would fall from the plane and survive. The diving pool into which he had fallen would cause him to shatter bones, but protect him from the destructive gravitation pull of both the earth and the VitalBiotics ground crew. He would live to tell the tale, but never in public. His heart had saved him. He’d remain a subject. Testimony to a flaw in the design process which resulted in an outlier. An edge case. A case for life itself.
