Caught in a shallow, dreamless sleep, Cole heard a chirp echoing in the distance. He forced himself back to consciousness, mentally tearing the curtain asunder. The chirp wasn't echoling any more; now it was repeating over and over, an alarm signifying engine failure. It was joined by a second alarm, then a third, denoting respective losses of navigation and hydraulics. Cole found himself in a symphony of malfunction. The Blackbird was spinning through the air like a stone skipping across a pond. the controls gave no response to Cole's touch. Ejection was impossible.

The Blackbird began to skim the desert which, Cole noticed, was now covered in snow.

Things went black again for Cole, and when he opened his eyes again, he found himself still in the cockpit, and a large brown bear was peering at him from the other side of the glass.