//------------------------------//
// Moving 
// Story: Pilot Betrayed 
// by Split Scimitar 
//------------------------------//

“Hello?” I answer my phone under some mental fog.

“Hi, is this Split Scimitar?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“Hi, I’m Open Skies with Pegasus Aviation. Anchorage ATC notified us of a major repair for an Airbus A320 under your name?”

“Yes! Um, both engine generators came off their mounts in turbulence, and as a result, we landed without electrical power.”

“My, that is a bit of a problem. We’re ready to take her in.”

“Sweet. Uh, 35 minutes from now okay?”

“Sounds good.“

“Am I meeting you at the office or am I going to have my FBO tow?”

“We’ll inspect it there and then tow it after inspection, so come to our office.”

“Okay, sounds good. Thank you for calling.”

“Thank you. Sorry we had to meet under these circumstances.”

“Yea!” I chuckle. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

I step into the shower at request for a towel and get ready in about 25 minutes. Quickly dressed and all forms of ID handy, I head for Ted Stevens. Instead of Signature, I head for Pegasus Aviation and pull into the office.

Checking in with the receptionist, I wait for a technician for about 5 minutes, when a gentleman of about my stature meets me in the lobby.

“Split Scimitar?”

“That’s me.” I say offering my hand.

“Open Skies. We talked on the phone.”

“Good stuff. You ready to go?”

“Yeah.”

We hop in and head for Signature. After I get ramp access, I head for the airplane. Up the air stair, I open the cabin main and conduct an obligatory interior inspection. No signs of damage, but I open all the window shades that weren’t open. Now onto the exterior.

Gear wells are good, underside of the fuselage shows no signs of damage. The engines again show no signs of miscues even after rotation tests. The wings? No damage there either, but knocking on the metal produces a rather strange sound.

Another knock produces a distinctly different sound than the one before it, which I point out to Open Skies. He then takes a look and makes the same guess as me about the generators jarring free from vibrations, so as soon as I sign the release waiver, I open my handheld and radio ground,

“Anchorage ground, Friendship 1 at Signature, tow to Pegasus.”

“Friendship 1, contact clearance delivery, 128.65.”

“Roger, Friendship 1.” “Anchorage Clearance, Friendship 1, Signature, request a tow to Pegasus maintenance.”

“Friendship 1, roger. On request, contact ground .9.”

“Friendship 1, thanks.” “Anchorage ground, Friendship 1 at Signature, request tow to Pegasus maintenance.”

“Friendship 1, Anchorage ground, roger.” “Any tugs on frequency?”

“Ground, you’ve got Alaska Super Tug.”

“Alaska Super Tug, can you do a tow from Signature to Pegasus?”

“Affirm.”

“Alaska Super Tug, taxi Signature via E, hold short runway 7L.”

“E, short of 7L, Alaska Super Tug.”

“Ground, Alaska Tug.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Repo for company on South Terminal.”

“Alaska Tug, K E to the south terminal.”

“K E, Alaska Tug.”

“Alaska Super Tug, cross runway 7L, hold short of 7R.”

“Cross 7L, short of 7R, Alaska Super Tug.”

“Alaska Super Tug, cross runway 7R, E to Signature. Your tow is the A320. Just advise when ready.”

“Copy, Alaska Super Tug.”

The tug roars across E and quickly mates to the airplane after a simple greeting. Open Skies joins me in the cockpit but then stands in the cockpit doorway when the tug radios ground.

“Ground, Alaska Super Tug, ready to go to Pegasus.”

“Alaska Super Tug, taxi E, hold short of 7R.”

“E, short of 7R, Alaska Super Tug.”

“Alaska Super Tug, cleared onto runway 7R, left C, hold short runway 7L.”

“Cleared onto 7R, C, short of 7L, Alaska Super Tug.”

Much faster than last night, we’re short of 7L faster than I can even think, because next thing I know, I hear, “Alaska Super Tug, cross runway 7L, C K to Pegasus.”

“Cross 7L, C K to Pegasus, Alaska Super Tug.”

In no time at all, the Super Tug flies us by the other hangars before turning us into Pegasus.  When the airplane is clear after wing walkers call it, the tug disconnects, leaving me to check the airplane into maintenance so Open Skies can inspect the airplane.

When I return to the house, Velvet answers the door, and I find the family in the kitchen except for Shining Armor, who I assume is tending to their baby.

“Max, I’m Cadance. We talked on the phone after my husband handed me over.”

“Cadance? A pleasure meeting you.”

“Mi Amore Cadenza is my full name, but I go by Cadance.”

“Split Scimitar, I go by Max.” I respond, offering my hand. “Do you, um, drive a Kia?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. Shining Armor got it for me as a gift a while back.”

“I admire his sense of humor. I’m a petrolhead, so gags like that I very much appreciate.”

“There you go.” She responds with a smile.

“Whenever you’re ready, we can explore the house. Unfortunately, since my airplane did sustain considerable damage in flight, I’m effectively stuck here until it’s fixed.”

“We’ll gladly house you.”

A few minutes later, Shining Armor emerges with a baby in his arms.

“Max, meet our little daughter, Flurry Heart.”

I whisper a “hello” as Shining Armor invites me to hold her. I nervously accept as we gently exchange her. Unsurprisingly, she wakes up and looks at me, she then looks around and starts to whine, but after Shining corrects her position and gives her a fatherly smooch, he leaves us be to sit at the table.

As I glance towards the table, Twilight chuckles at me as I then lock eyes with the baby. She lets out a few giggles and coos and reaches her hands out.

I smile at her as she coos at me and grabs my face. I hear the table snickering as I chuckle lightly.

“How old?” I ask.

“7 months.” Cadance responds.

“How sweet.”

“Aww, she likes you.”

“I can tell, which is funny because normally, I get a baby in my arms and it cries immediately.”

“Well, I guess you got lucky with Flurry Heart.”

“Yeah, considering my own daughter was the last baby I held in my arms, I guess I am.”

As Flurry wants to touch my face again, I oblige and let her pinch my cheeks, which makes her giggle even more.

“She’s a real grabber.” Cadance chuckles as I close my eyes to avoid her poking them.

“Not A Bad Thing.” I respond. “Just beware of what she reaches for: Fire for instance.”

Shining chuckles as Velvet asks for Flurry next. I then pass her on but  give her a kiss on the forehead. She then giggles as I pass her onto Velvet, who gets the same treatment.

“Like I said, whenever you’re ready, we can head over to the house and check it out.”

“Ready?” Shining asks everyone.

“Where’s her car seat?” Velvet asks.

“Can you get it from our room, Dad?”

“On it.” Night Light responds as he heads for the back.

When we reach the house, I enter the code for the front door (after a few guesses) and go room by room. Each time I check for Flurry Heart, she’s in someone else’s hands, ending up in mine just as we reach the master.

I watch the husband and wife duo have an intimate and physically heartfelt discussion as I gently rock a yawning Flurry to sleep, yawning a couple times in my arms.

After about 10 minutes, they both deliberate by splitting up and looking at the house. From what I could tell, because they’ve let me hold their baby twice now, I’ve got a good feeling about this one.

“Max, thank you for the opportunity. It means a lot to us, especially with Flurry Heart’s recent arrival. We absolutely love this house.” Cadence says kindheartedly.

“And it’s the perfect place to start.” Shining adds. “It’s a yes from me!”

“And a yes from me too!” Cadance finishes as she asks for Flurry.

“I’m glad to hear. I didn’t even need to point anything out to convince you. You must really like the place.”

“We really do. It’s much more spacious than where we are now, and much easier to manage if and when the need to baby-proof arises.”

“I think it’ll come around sooner or later, seeing as she’s very, um, kinesthetic.”

“Indeed.” Says Cadance as she puts Flurry over her shoulder.

“Shall we get started on the paperwork?”

“Absolutely. By the way, if this takes too long, I won’t be available until next week. I’m on duty at base.”

“Elmendorf?”

“Yes sir.”

“Thank you for your service.”

“I appreciate it.”

After I do some digging, I find the slips and contract for signing. As this is a rental, the rental agreement is also included, which outlines all the basics, the most glaring one being the only utility to pay out of pocket is electricity. Contact information provided.

The head of household takes care of the signatures while the second name then takes care of the little things like utilities and such. Ironically, as this takes place, Flurry wakes up and starts to fidget. She’s then let go and slowly crawling.

“Careful sweetie!” Shining exclaims. “Can someone make sure she doesn’t hurt herself?”

Night Light plays goalie, but a few moments later, as I’m reviewing the paperwork, Flurry bumps into my leg, which Cadance then peers over and exclaims, “Flurry Heart!”

“It’s fine.” I respond as I squat down to pick her up, reaching out to me again as I do so. I then hold her in my arms, but she still reaches out, so I let her grab my shoulders. Surprisingly, she kicks her legs as she tries to climb atop my shoulder, so I decide to support her. She coos as I give myself leverage to support her, to which both parents bite their nails.

“Help me, she doesn’t want to let go.” I whisper as she gets comfortable in a poor position for me.

“I want to take her,” Cadance responds, “but she’ll fight if we do.”

“Can’t argue with that.” I chuckle.

To reduce discomfort, I try to adjust her into a more stable position for the both of us, but she tightens her grip and groans.

“She must really like you.” Cadance chuckles, “she’s never done this to anyone else!”

“Huh. The first baby I interact with since my own daughter is the one that actually likes me.”

Everyone laughs as I review the paperwork with her in my shoulder. Only missing one set of initials and a signature, I then shake hands and hug each of them to celebrate a successful rental agreement. Since the house is fully furnished, there is some question of what to do with their own furniture, but I remind them that all the furniture can be moved around to their liking so long as it stays in the house. Naturally, Shining and Twilight then shout unanimously “clear the rooms!”

“Nice sibling chemistry.” I smile.

“He’s her B.B.B.F.F.” Cadance whispers.

I raise one eyebrow as she fills me in. “Big brother, best friend forever.”

“Uh huh.” I respond. “Inseparable as kids?”

“Oh yeah. I used to babysit her.”

“So how did you two meet?”

“Well, I spent a lot of my childhood with my two aunts because my parents traveled all the time for work, and Twilight was under my aunts’ mentorship, so naturally, I got to babysit her.”

“Her parents busybodies?”

“At the time. Velvet was writing novels, and Night Light was teaching classes.”

“Oh. How does Shining come into play?”

“Well, we had all been pretty close to each other for years, so fast forward to Twilight starting high school and us halfway through college, I actually asked him out the first time.”

“So, you babysat Twilight and asked out Shining Armor?”

“Yeah. We were all practically siblings. We always made excuses to hang out when we could.”

“I imagine that it was difficult once you two started dating?”

“Not as much as you may think. Shining and I were a year out of college when we got married, so it worked out nicely.”

“Oh. Ok. Now here’s a question I hate to ask, why did you wait this long to have a child?”

“It’s no problem. We wanted to be secure before having a child, obviously, but Shining was all over the world for his career. Dayton, Colorado Springs, The Academy. Long story short, Shining accepted an open position at Elmendorf.”

“Well, congratulations on the selection. Thank you for your service.”

“Thank you, I appreciate it.”

“Before you move anything, let’s just make sure of the terms. You’re responsible for all damages, you are in charge of electricity, all else covered in rent, set at $6,660 a month, no smoking indoors, furniture can’t leave the house, and, uh, please do treat it like you own it.”

“Sounds good. I can do that.”

Soon, after Flurry Heart falls asleep in her car seat, we load trucks and start moving out. We all work to clear the house, with Cadance periodically taking breaks to check on the baby.

The first things to go are their own piano and the biggest pieces of furniture: Wardrobes, dressers, the beds. All but one bed make the first trip along with a couple boxes of confidential & personal documents. Rinse and repeat. Their strategy of “move everything first,” works out nicely, because after all the heavy stuff moves, two of the strongest stay behind at the new house to move stuff around there. Both trucks make two more trips before Mr. and Mrs. Sparkle join me to conduct a final clean sweep.

When we return, Cadance has put Flurry Heart to nap, so after we make copies of the paperwork and they write a check to cover their first month’s rent plus deposit, I hand them the house keys and offer them the opportunity to change the code on the front door. They don’t, because the code is easy for them to remember, so after we exchange keys, we shake hands and exchange hugs again as we then spend the remainder of the day settling in.

A few hours later, after almost everything is unpacked, the two sets of parents all pitch in to make dinner. They then head for the grocery store, leaving Twilight and I alone.

“So…” Twilight begins nervously.

“Well, it’s just the two of us, and one sleeping baby.”

“Yeah…”

“Can I just say that I really enjoyed our conversation at Adler?”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Seeing you get so excited about astronomy and maths made me excited for you. It’s not very often that I get to see that marriage of career and passion anymore.”

“Oh, stop.” She says blushing. “I’m just lucky to have been born with the desire to do what I love for a living.”

“I was too. Let me tell you, I didn’t become a pilot for the money, or the flight attendants…”

“Go on.” She replies indignantly.

“I don’t mean it like that. The kind of people I went to college with all wanted to see the world or meet their “one in every city” fantasy. Or in the case of some, vie for the legendary multi-million dollar salary. Point is, I like to think I was in it just so I could fly airplanes for a living. I would be one of the happiest men on the face of the earth. Over time, I just did what I needed to do to do just that. Out of it came 5 years of college, 4 mental breakdowns, 3 burnouts, 2 suicide attempts, and one Shattered Dream.”

Twilight gives me a worried look as I continue, “but I’m not here to get your sympathy. My point is, I was glad to see that there’s someone else out there who did what they loved for a living rather than chasing the money. Anyway, I’ve said more than enough about me. I want to talk about you.”

“Oh! Well, where do I start?” She chuckles. “Born and raised in Philadelphia, attended Purdue, and ended up at Butler.”

“Where did your passion for math come from?”

“Um, well, I guess I’ve always liked how numbers made sense, so I got into number theory. Most of my time was spent on why the western world reveres base 10, which you proved to know a bit about. Eventually, I got bored of that, so I turned my eyes skyward, and now I wear glasses as a result.”

Completely blindsided by the joke, I poorly stifle laughter but then quip back “same” as I offer a glasses swap. Her vision is admittedly pretty bad, while Twilight gets thrown for a whirl wearing mine.

“Do you know your diopter number?” I ask as we exchange our glasses back.

“Not off the top of my head, but it’s pretty high.”

“I take it you’re nearsighted, so that would mean your diopter is negative.”

“Well, why do you wear glasses?? These lenses are like nothing.”

“One eye is 20/25, which needs to be correctable to 20/20, so one lens is weak, but the other eye is a blank.”

“Oh. Yeah, my vision is terrible. I can’t see anything without my glasses.”

“Family history?”

“Actually no. I’m the first to need them.”

“How long have you had them?”

“Since elementary school, either 3rd or 4th grade, probably 3rd.”

“Oh, well, if it’s any consolation, I think they look great on you. They frame your eyes very beautifully.”

“Thank you. That means a lot.” She blushes. “Yours… too.”

“Oh, thanks. You, uh, want to… hang out more? I love hearing you talk about your passions, especially because you’ve made a career out of it.”

“Yeah. I’d like that. It’s nice to hear you get excited about airplanes and cars too.”

“Well… most of that passion is dead anyway.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

“You should’ve met me in high school. I loved airplanes and cars more than life itself.”

“I’d love to see your collection if it makes you happy to talk about it.”

“I’m game. Fair warning, I’m not as excited about it as I once was.”

“We’ll see about that.” She says with a wink.

As we go on about our interests in a “tell me about yours, I’ll tell you about mine” exchange, headlights shine outside before a horn not matched to either truck signals the alarm system.

Velvet opens the door and upon finding us, says “well, aren’t we all having fun. How’s my little grandbaby?”

“Actually, uh…” I start.

“We haven’t checked on her. Seems like she was fast asleep when you left.”

“I’ll go check.” I volunteer.

When I find her in the master, Flurry is asleep in a cradled position, all wrapped up to stay warm on this -8° evening.

“She’s still fast asleep.” I say when I return.

“Aw.” Velvet replies.

“Max, can we talk?” Night Light asks.

“You and me?”

“Yes. I have some questions for you.”