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Marshal is on her, his arm looped around her chest, pulling her to him while he reaches for the gun.
    All of the passengers, including me, duck low in our seats. I wish like hell my knife hadn’t been taken away from me by airport security. Not that knife beats gun or anything, but it has always given me some confidence.
    From the rear of the plane comes: “I can’t believe you tried to shoot me, bitch!”
    And then a rolling cart loaded with tinkling glass bottles of water and juice and booze sails past our row.
    Another gunshot, and I yelp, taking hold of Christopher’s shirt collar and dragging him into a hunched position. Ben flicks Christopher on the forehead, right between the eyes.
    “ What, pray tell, the eff, Benjamin?”Christopher says, keeping his eyes closed.
    Ben smirks. “I just thought you’d like to help me and Penny rewind this silliness.”
    Christopher shrugs. “Go on, girl, go’head, get down.”
    “Okay, man.” Ben looks at me. “Ready?” He stands, arms out.
    “Wait!”I grab onto his pants leg. “I’ve never done this awake before.”
    He looks down at me and winks. “Good thing you’re still asleep then.”
    I don’t even have time to react to that before my body forces me to my feet. I climb up onto my seat and ready myself to begin conducting -- at least that’s how I always think of it.
    I raise my hands up and the scene playing out before us stops. Only Ben and I and the plane are moving, unpaused. We fall into a natural partnership; he lets me rewind the woman and the Air Marshal, while he takes the male flight attendant. Two bullets explode backward from their landing spots; one in the overhead compartment and one from the top of the drinks cart. The shattered glass pitcher of lemon water that was resting on the cart fuses itself back together as Ben reverses the cart into the hands of the angry man. I neatly slip the bullets, one, two, back into the gun, and now that the cart no longer blocks the aisle, I step up onto the arm of Ben’s seat and hop down. Pushing, pulling, bending time to my will, I send the woman and the Air Marshal back through the curtain into First Class. They chase each other in backward steps toward his seat. She replaces his gun in his holster before the hot coffee she’d thrown in his face arches through the air and returns to its vessel.
    Then, I’m unstorming down the aisle with her. Ben’s waiting on the other side with the guy, the word “bitch” winnowing its way back into his mouth.
    “Your call what to do here, Penny.”
    I don’t know what to do. This is the first time that I’m aware I’m not just dreaming, but actually doing this. The awareness quickly becomes self-consciousness. I stand there frozen, waiting for the answer, for the calm to come over me again.
    “Let’s stow them in separate bathrooms for now?” Ben suggests, and I’m grateful at least one of us isn’t a complete dumbshit.
    We get Cheaty and Shooty stashed and Ben holds them both paused while I start up the rest of the people on the plane.
    “Now this,” I hear Ben say as I begin to fade out of the dream, slipping down, down, “is the tricky part. I should’ve thought to collect a bunch of pillows or…”
     
     
     
    I wake up cradled in Christopher’s lap on the floor at the back of the plane. Ben is standing above us, a palm on each of the bathroom doors.
    “Hey,” Christopher says, smiling down at me and stroking my forehead. “Nice wor-”
    A woman strides toward us, her gaze flicking from our scene on the floor up to Ben.
    “Go on back to your seat,” Ben says to her. “You can hold it.”
    She turns around abruptly without speaking and goes back up the aisle. I look at Ben. “You can do the mind stuff too?” For some reason, that doesn’t sit well with me. I’m so confused and starting to feel a little overwhelmed. What exactly am I capable of? What powers have Ben and Christopher been using on me that I don’t know about? What powers