Chapter 105 - The Meridian of the Sky

​The low, deep, and drone-like hum of the Rolls-Royce engines on the Japanese airline's Boeing 777 had become a constant, enveloping the first-class cabin in an artificial and protective twilight. Crossing the massive time zone that divided the dynamism of Asia from the historical rigidity of the Old Continent implied inhabiting, for nearly fourteen hours, a floating limbo without time or federation demands—a space where the touchscreens of the flight map marked the millimetric progress of a small digital silhouette over the infinite, frozen plains of Siberia. In row four of the aircraft, completely isolated from the rest of the passengers by the light wood panels and matte finishes of the executive pods, Aibek and Jake shared the comfortable, dense, and restorative silence of long-distance travelers who no longer have to hide what they are from the world.