Sarah's badge identified her by name. Eight years with Atlantic Airways, according to the small service pin beneath it. She was in her mid-thirties, with tightly pinned hair and the alert, tired eyes of someone near the end of a demanding schedule. Marcus would later learn that she was ordinarily competent, occasionally generous, and capable of making terrible judgments when her certainty outpaced her curiosity. At that moment, he knew none of those things. He knew only what she had decided about him.
"Jessica," Sarah called toward the front galley, "can you come here a moment?"
Another attendant appeared, carrying an inventory sheet and a packet of hot towels. Jessica Flores had worked enough flights with Sarah to recognize the tone. She expected a passenger requesting more alcohol than service rules permitted or insisting an oversized suitcase fit beneath a seat. What she found was a man sitting upright with his seat belt fastened, hands resting on the armrests as a flight attendant asked him to relocate.
"What's wrong?" Jessica asked.
"This gentleman seems confused about his assignment," Sarah replied. "He insists he's in first class."
"I am in first class," Marcus said. "That's the problem we're trying to resolve."
Jessica looked at the boarding pass. She did something Sarah hadn't done: she read the name, checked the flight number, and examined the status underneath the scannable code. "It says boarded," she murmured.
Sarah turned her tablet toward her colleague. "And my preliminary manifest says his original ticket was economy."
"Original?" Marcus repeated.
Jessica looked down again. "Sometimes the cabin devices don't fully synchronize after a reservation change. Sarah, maybe the gate can confirm the current seat map."
"I know what I'm looking at," Sarah said.
Jessica's expression changed only slightly, but Marcus noticed. So did the woman in 3B, who had spent twenty-three years learning the tiny shifts in expression that preceded serious mistakes in emergency rooms. Her name was Dr. Patricia Voss. She had trained herself never to assume a calm person was safe and never to assume an authoritative person was correct. Both lessons had cost patients something before she learned them.
"Excuse me," Dr. Voss said. "If his pass scans correctly, couldn't you just verify the seat with the gate?"
Sarah faced her with a fixed smile. "Ma'am, we're handling the matter."
"I'm sure you are. I'm asking whether you've checked the current record."
"Please allow us to do our jobs."
Marcus looked toward the window. On the apron outside, a baggage tug moved past with the slow determination of an animal carrying more than it wanted. Ground workers in reflective vests walked between carts, communicating by gestures he couldn't understand. Hundreds of ordinary tasks had to go right for a commercial flight to depart. It was remarkable how one person refusing to verify a ticket could bring so many of them to a halt.
"Ma'am," he said to Sarah, "I paid for this ticket twenty-one days ago. My account shows it as issued and boarded. Would you mind calling the gate?"
"Would you mind moving so other people can settle?"
He looked down the aisle. No one was trying to pass his seat. "I don't appear to be preventing anyone from sitting."