Friday, 1st January

The flight attendant sat in the first-class cabin on the journey from JFK to Dubai. She could finally take a few moments to herself and relax. All the passengers were sleeping. With no turbulent weather, the majority were likely to stay that way for the duration of the flight.

She watched as the duty barman ducked into one of the two toilets behind the bar. He shouldn’t be using them. They were off-limits to the crew. From the moment the passengers had boarded, he’d been working almost non-stop. The New Year’s Eve/Day flights were always busy for the bar staff. The start of that year had been no different.

Raising her arm, she activated the display on her smartwatch. It was 1:17am; the journey seemed to be taking longer than normal.

She shifted in her seat and turned to face one of the many monitors built into the bulkhead walls. An infomercial encouraging passengers to make purchases from the on-board duty-free shop was playing. She’d watched it so many times she knew it off by heart. Pressing a button with a green map icon, she selected the location channel. The screen flickered as the image changed to a small yellow plane positioned on a white dotted line in the centre of a dark blue background, showing the route the flight was taking. Towards the bottom of the screen, a small irregularly-shaped area of green denoted a land mass.

We should be over the United Kingdom by now.

That meant the green shape must be somewhere north of the mainland, most likely the northernmost part of the Shetland Isles. If everything went well, they should land in just over six hours.

Halfway down the cabin on the right-hand side, a red light appeared above one of the window seats. At first, she took no notice. She’d done enough flights over the last fifteen years to know that passengers carried a varied assortment of electronic devices. Most of them produced illumination of some sort. It took several seconds for her to realise this one couldn’t be from a mobile phone or tablet. Normally, there would be a glow as the light from a screen hit the particles in the air and reflected off them. That wasn’t the case here. This was different. Her curiosity piqued; she twisted in her seat to get a clearer look at it.

Hanging in the air was a red letter T. It appeared to be almost twelve inches tall, eight inches wide at the top, and possibly had some depth, though she couldn’t be certain. She stared at it for several seconds, unable to understand what she was looking at.

As she studied it, the light that first caught her eye drew her attention again. Despite dimming the cabin lights to help its occupants sleep, a warm red glow still bathed it. Objects closest to the T were being illuminated. There were even shadows pointing away from it. It was as if the T was the source of the light, but how could that be possible?

Over the years, she had seen many strange items brought on to flights, but this was different. The passenger sitting beneath the T must have some sort of gadget that allowed them to project images, like a 3D hologram. It was probably a recent development from the likes of Google or Apple; the next big thing in home entertainment. She wondered why the passenger had turned it on now and not when the plane acknowledged the New Year. Perhaps it was a pre-release model and only capable of projecting the one thing? Maybe it was being developed in secret, so competitors didn’t beat them to market. The passenger must have waited for others in the cabin to be asleep before turning it on. Whatever the reason, she would need to ask them to turn it off. The light might disturb the other passengers and put an end to the quiet moment she was enjoying.

As she stood, she took extra care to prevent the chair from making any noise as it flattened back into the wall. She’d only taken a few steps when the T disappeared. They must have heard her coming, but she still needed to ask them not to turn it back on.

The seat below where the T had been was in its reclined position. A middle-aged man with blond unkempt hair occupied it. He was snoring. Years of experience kicked in as she leaned forward and looked around the seat, noticing everything. There was no sign of any electronic device on his lap or in the surrounding area. At the man’s feet sat an open travel bag, though it didn’t look as if it contained any form of device. She straightened herself and shifted her attention to the rest of the cabin. It was possible that another passenger had been projecting it. She looked around, expecting to see someone pointing a gadget at her or hiding something, but everyone appeared to be sleeping.

Continuing towards the front of the cabin, she took the long way back to her seat. With an experienced eye, she checked each passenger as if she was ensuring their seat belt was fastened and their tray table folded. She turned left on reaching the bar and continued walking. When she arrived back at her seat, she had seen nothing that might have projected the T.

Taking a last look around, she hoped to find the origin of the light, but found nothing. With her seat pulled down, she glanced towards the monitor. The yellow plane was still on the dotted line, but there was no longer a green area at the bottom. She checked her watch again. Only five minutes had passed since the last time she looked. Settling back in her seat, she waited to be relieved.

Whatever the T was, it didn’t reappear for the rest of the flight.