"Mr. Alex, you told many people about your… visions. Do you still stand by that story?"
"Yes, sir."
"Mr. Alex, multiple passengers said you started shouting to get off the plane shortly after boarding. Why did you do that? Who instructed you? Have you ever received military training outside the country?"
The skinny student, Alex, went red with rage. The veins in his neck bulged.
"I didn't! None of that happened! Are you happy now, you idiot?!"
…
"Miss Swan, many people are grateful for what you did. They believe your initial warning played a key role in saving their lives. Can you tell us what you were thinking at the time?"
"I just wanted to save people. There wasn't anything more to it."
The FBI lead agent flipped through a thick stack of documents on his desk.
"According to your old teachers, you struggled to integrate into normal school life. Several classmates reported antisocial tendencies. In your view, what caused that?"
Bella answered with a perfectly straight face:
"They disliked me because I'm too beautiful."
Pfft!
Coffee sprayed across the reports.
The agent hadn't seen that coming.
Beauty is subjective, but the man had seen enough people to know—Bella was a cut above. That much was obvious.
Most girls these days were still wearing wide-leg jeans and leaning into the hip-hop trend. Bella wanted no part of it. What was that style? Jeans so wide they swallowed your shoes? Absolutely not.
She preferred fitted denim, which put her totally out of sync with the current trend—and explained why half the girls at the airport called her "plain" or "country."
Paired with her pale complexion and quietly superior aura, it made sense—psychologically speaking—that she gave off an aloof vibe. People like that often didn't bother lying.
The FBI lead crumpled the coffee-stained report and tossed it into the trash.
"Fine. I'll allow it. Keep that confidence."
Bella was questioned for barely five minutes before they let her go.
Not because she was cleared, but because there were simply too many survivors.
Sixty or seventy people had lived. Why them? Who let them live? Why did others die? Suspicious.
Every airport employee was suspicious.
If they widened the scope, every traveler who'd passed through the airport that week was suspicious.
If you were alive and breathing, you were suspicious.
Bella bought a sandwich for lunch. Just as she unwrapped it, her phone rang. She glanced at the female agent "assigned" to protect her—really just to watch her.
"…Can I answer that?"
"Put it on speaker."
Fine. Nothing to hide anyway.
She didn't recognize the number, but when she answered, the voice surprised her—Natasha from that morning.
It hadn't even been a full day, but the morning already felt far away.
"What's up, Natasha?"
"I'm really sorry, Bella. We're dealing with some trouble over here. When are you coming back to Phoenix? The police want to ask you a few questions."
Bella laughed into the phone.
"Phoenix? Haha—did no one tell you? Something huge happened at the airport this morning."
"No, what happened? We've been stuck at the precinct."
Natasha's call pushed the Flight 180 incident into a new direction entirely.
A Category C1 supervisor took over the toy-car robbery case and merged it with the Flight 180 investigation.
Fifteen minutes later—Bella finished a cup of cola just in time to see Natasha's entire family being escorted in, bewildered, along with the three robbers.
The robber who had escaped earlier had been running for half a day by now, but the FBI didn't care.
Half a day, a whole day—didn't matter.
If he was still on Earth, they would find him.
The family of five was also questioned top to bottom—like suspects.
The FBI was, in its own twisted way, truly egalitarian.
From John Gray, a sixty-something professor, to a baby in its mother's arms—everyone was a potential threat.
Maybe the professor sympathized with terrorists.
Maybe the baby was a powerful mutant.
Everyone was worth interrogating.
Pretty women were top suspects—because trouble and beauty often traveled together. It was practically a rule in the Bureau: a beautiful woman could talk a stranger into doing almost anything.
After Bella was personally questioned by the intelligence supervisor, young Natasha got the same treatment.
"Miss Romanoff, I hear you inherited your surname from your mother. What are your views on Russia?"
"No views."
"Miss Romanoff, your grades are excellent, but you deliberately make simple mistakes during exams. What exactly are you hiding?"
"I'm hiding the fact that my teachers are idiots."
"Miss Romanoff, your PE instructors gave very strong recommendations regarding your physical ability. Why refuse all extracurricular sports programs? Don't you find them fun?"
Natasha rolled her eyes so hard it was a miracle they didn't fall out. These questions were ridiculous—painfully so.
Her lack of cooperation, combined with her Russian surname, got her flagged as a major monitoring target… without her even knowing why. She was now being watched at the same level as Bella.
After hours of triage, by 2 p.m., the FBI still hadn't found a culprit behind the explosion.
No one could explain how the plane blew up.
The Bureau attempted their classic move—blaming Magneto.
Planes, trains, missiles—if metal was involved and the cause was unclear, blame Magneto.
It worked every time.
But this time the Brotherhood quietly sent a message:
"Not us. Don't drag us into this. Seriously."
With no scapegoat, the investigation had to continue.
Over a hundred passengers dead—the news had spread worldwide. Pressure on the FBI skyrocketed. They planned to confine the survivors to a hotel for 48 hours and investigate every traveler who'd passed through the airport in the last three days.
Public outrage or not—the operation moved forward.
As two of the "major suspects," Bella and Natasha were assigned to the same room, with a female agent posted outside their door.
A cozy little detention. Marvel-style.