SkyCinemaDeluxe was what LegendAir called its digital on demand service, and the selection rivalled that of a big-city video store. Most of the films were brand new, some still running in theatres, and two hadn’t even come out yet – they were celebrating their ‘Premier in the Clouds’ on the plane’s exclusive movie channel.
Mats had no idea if the offerings were only this wide-ranging up here in first class or if every passenger had access to them.
All he knew was that there was no channel 13/10.
From drama and comedies, to thrillers and documentaries – every genre had their own channel, and every one sported at least fifty different films.
Using a wireless controller he had to aim at the flat-screen like a laser pointer, he was only able to scroll until reaching the horror-comedy Tucker & Dale vs Evil. There was nothing else after that on channel 10, movie 49.
At least not officially.
Mats looked at the controller, which was shaped like a computer mouse, and pressed on the right arrow button.
Nothing.
He stood up from his seat and pressed again. And again.
The cursor suddenly jumped to a new screen. It was empty.
White.
Channel 11/1
he read on the otherwise blank display.
He pressed to the right again, and the screen still offered no content.
Only the number up in the right corner of the screen had changed.
12/1
Ten mouse clicks later, he’d done it. According to the display, he had reached channel 13/10. And the screen wasn’t white any more. Now it was grey.
It stayed like that a while, with nothing to see apart from a bright, blinking dot in the middle of the screen, its steady flicker reminding Mats of those red signal lights on the wings.
Then it crackled, and what looked like a flash of light cut off the image that was obviously about to appear.
‘What the…’
Mats took a step up to the monitor, which had such high resolution that the image he saw didn’t change even with him standing right before the screen.
It resembled a saturated and faded video from the 80s that had been copied too much. Too many pale browns, which ironically matched the Sky Suite’s lavish interior perfectly.
Eleven years ago, was Mats’ first thought, since he’d instantly recognised what he saw.
It’s been that long.
Yet it had still lost none of its horror.
The quality of the original video was terrible, yet the jerking, fuzziness and bad focus had little to do with the reproduction but rather the cheap camera that had captured the horror. On top of that, the camera was much too far away, standing or hanging or placed somewhere. At least ten metres from the woman who right at that moment was fighting for her life.
He jumped as his phone buzzed again.
‘Enjoying the on-board entertainment?’ asked that Johnny Depp voice, accompanied by that now-familiar breathing of the person actually speaking.
‘Where did you get this?’ asked Mats. He’d stopped the recording.
‘Doesn’t matter. Just use it.’
Mats shook his head. ‘Kaja knows this video by heart. It won’t trigger anything in her any more. She’s worked through that ordeal from school.’
Johnny laughed robotically. ‘No, she hasn’t. No one can ever completely work through a trauma like the one Kaja suffered.’
Mats sighed in despair. ‘Even so, your plan won’t work. I spent years stabilising my patient mentally and emotionally. In dozens of sessions. That’s not something I can just change back in a few hours.’ He added a snap of his fingers. ‘I’m sorry but the mind isn’t some device you can turn on and off. Even if I wanted to, it’s simply not possible for me to manipulate Kaja Claussen into acting out her violent fantasies and becoming a mass murderer within just a few hours.’
‘Don’t give me that,’ Johnny barked. ‘Think about September eleventh. Constructing the north tower of the World Trade Center took seven years. Making it collapse, just one hour and forty-two minutes. It’s always faster to tear something down than it is to repair it. That’s especially true for someone’s mind. Isn’t that right, Dr Krüger?’
Mats released a groan, imagining the fireball of an exploding aircraft. The image was not only so ghastly because he himself was sitting in a craft doomed to crash. It was because he also knew that Johnny was speaking the truth.
‘All you need is one hard shove, make contact, a hit, something to shake the foundation of Kaja Claussen’s psyche so severely that her self-control collapses like the house of cards that it is. And you can do it, Dr Krüger, I know so. The video gives you that extra tool, for speeding things up.’
‘Is there something else on there that I don’t know about?’
‘Wait until minute nine. From eight seconds on.’
‘What happens then?’ Mats asked, but the connection was dead. The blackmailer had delivered his message and was sticking to his rule of never saying more than absolutely necessary. Mats felt a mix of revulsion and curiosity. Rubberneckers at the scene of an accident must feel similar when wondering what horrors were hidden beyond the police barriers. He also wasn’t sure what exactly in the video could make it possible for him to transform Kaja back into a psychological wreck. Into someone who wished for the death of herself and of others.
Like she was back then, with her first phone call.
As she sat on the school restroom toilet.
With a gun in her hand.
Mats tried fast-forwarding to the minute indicated in the video but had trouble getting it right. He skipped all the way to the end on his first try.
Okay, take it easy.
He was sweating. His fingers left damp marks on the remote, but he at least managed to find the slower fast forward.
Right when he reached minute eight, he heard a click behind him.
‘Dr Krüger?’
He turned to face the female voice, managing to turn off the monitor at the same time.
Too late.
‘Is that TV you’re watching?’ the flight attendant asked him. Holding a tight smile, she set a basket of fruit on the buffet counter next to the sliding door she’d just come through.
‘What were you just watching?’ she said.
And Mats had no idea what he was supposed to tell Kaja Claussen.