Mark pulled off his headset. “You forgot to lean the mixture for the lower altitude after descent. But you lived.” A pause. “Good job.”

“Bradley Approach, Cessna 141SP,” she said into the dead mic. Nothing. Radios were gone now.

Elena had a choice. Push on to Decatur in zero visibility, no airspeed, a dying engine, and a compass swinging like a pendulum? Or divert to the little private field at Monticello, which she remembered from a sectional chart as having a 2,400-foot strip, no tower, and—if the sim’s database was right—a bean field at the end.

The rain hadn't stopped for three days over central Illinois, which made the Frasca 141 simulator in the corner of Bradley University’s aviation building feel less like a training device and more like a lifeboat.

“Copy,” she said. “Load shedding. Master off. Avionics bus standby.” She clicked off the cross-feed, pulled the nav radios, and kept the transponder on for just another minute—enough for Chicago Center to see her squawk before she killed that too.