by Toby Weston
He strolled once around the perimeter of the second-class shopping area. The walls were colourful, greens and blues illuminated to evoke sparkling water and verdant jungle. Plants were picked out with spots of bright illumination, growing amongst the bunk cubicles, which stepped back, three high, around the entire perimeter. The space, which could have been overly clinical, was broken by protrusions and ledges affording some privacy to those entering and leaving their cramped private spaces.
Most of the travellers were enjoying the varied seating options that the central atrium offered; either lounging on bean bags in the quiet zone, perching on high stools at the Parisian café, or seated at tables in one of the restaurants. Ben stopped at one of the curving three-metre windows which broke up the tiers of cubicles. He was on the port side and so could still see Oahu below them. Ben had always travelled first class, and this was his first nosey around the plebeian sections; but, even measured against his own elevated standards, he would have admitted it was comfortable.
Ben headed forward. His oafs would be checking the gym and shower blocks. A wide corridor with a desk, manned by a smart young man in white, separated first class from the rest of the scum. As Ben approached, the vape got its first sniff of traitor and rattled in his pocket.
Fucking got you! Ben thought to himself, as the vibration in his pocket sent a sympathetic thrill through his viscera.
“I am sorry, sir, this is the First Class section.”
“I see. So how about an upgrade? I’m a frequent flyer,” Ben said, as pings from his goons began arriving.
“Sorry, sir,” the steward apologised sincerely. “That is not possible at this time.”
Ben heard heavy, hurried footsteps coming up behind him. He turned to confirm it was his guys.
‘I’ve got it from here, Mr Baphmet,’ Qendrim, the lead goon, subvocalised. Ben heard the heavily accented voice through his own Spex.
He nodded, slightly peeved. His father had made it very clear that, at the first sign of their quarry, he was to let the professionals take over.
Qendrim nodded to the rest of his team now jogging up to join them. Mergim, the largest of the unsavoury thugs, pushed past Ben. He stood before the steward, who was at his wooden hostess stand. Ben watched as Mergim bent his bulk down, lowering his face and peering sideways at the steward. The youth smiled slightly at the unusual body language and unconsciously mirrored the movement, tilting his head to the side and looking back curiously. In one assured movement, Mergim reached up an ape-like paw and smashed the steward’s head down onto the solid wooden stand.
Ben winced at the sound and watched as the young crewman collapsed silently behind his lectern. The goons sprinted forward. Ben hurried after them. The vape in his pocket was vibrating intermittently as it sniffed more of Keith’s skin flakes or droplets of exhaled moisture containing his DNA.
The goons had now unslung sidearms. Ben had been briefed on the precarious vacuum bubble they were floating in and hoped they could continue to rely on momentum and their intimidating size to shoulder past the belatedly mustering crew.
To the consternation of the few passengers travelling first class in the forward lounge, Ben and his posse burst in as a ball of shouting confusion. Two crew members, who had been blocking the entrance, were shocked with stun batons jabbed unceremoniously against their foreheads. They grunted and dropped, their collapsing bodies shoved to the side as the goons rushed past.
Two waiters looked awkwardly at the thugs, backing off in the face of overwhelming force.
“Now, what on earth do you think you are doing here?!” admonished a well-tailored man, putting down his printed newspaper and pushing back his chair.
“Sit fuck down,” suggested Mergim.
“I most certainly will not! Have you any idea who I am?”
Mergim didn’t care, and Ben didn’t know, although he would accept the man was probably someone important; the first-class lounge on an Atlantean Xepplin was prime VIP hunting grounds. But Ben had spotted the back of a more interesting head and cut off the man’s outrage.
“As I live and breathe, if it isn’t my old mate Keith Wilson!” Ben said flamboyantly. When this failed to elicit the desired response—or, in fact, any response—Ben tried again. “I said, if it isn’t my old friend KEITH WILSON. This is where you turn around with some witty comeback, Keith.”
More crew, now slightly better prepared with helmets and riot shields, were edging up from the corridor, backing the goon rearguard into the lounge. The waiters had disappeared into the kitchen, and the scandalised VIP had sat back down with a humph.
“We found your shoes, Keith! Can you believe that? Do you know how many pairs of shoes we found in the last ten days? Do you? Keith? Keith?” Ben nagged the still unresponsive head.
“Wait, let me check…” continued Ben. “One hundred and twenty-seven! You wouldn’t believe the number of hats, coats, shoes and umbrellas we swabbed for DNA. Tens of thousands of items to follow up on. But your shoes stuck out because you’re dead, right? You’ve been dead years and then suddenly a pair of your freshly stinky shoes show up in a hedge. So we start looking. An unauthorised hitchhiker here, reports of a tramp sleeping in the hedges, frightening the children. Lots of lovely hair and dandruff, Keith. Thousands of leads to follow up. But slowly a pattern. You took a piss in a hedge, near a beach. Lovely spot, by the way. Then nothing. Vanished. But lucky old us, a captain was being disciplined by his BHJ gynoid—dressed as a Scottish schoolmistress, if you’re interested. Are you interested, Keith...? Keith?”
Ben was a master at winding people up, and he noticed with glee the rosy glow which was slowly spreading on the ears and neck of the otherwise implacable head.
“Anyway, the ship’s navigator, the second in command, another BHJ employee: a Sage. He noticed a ghost on the radar. Maybe the trace of a leaping dolphin? But no, it was just a couple of kilometres away, travelling too fast. Coming and going. This was down near Puerto Rico, by the way. Interestingly enough, it was a nice straight line all the way back to a little streak of piss on a Cornish beach. Then, lo and behold, a day later a Sage assistant, running on the Companion of a business man, on this very Xeppelin would you believe… notices an unscheduled change of altitude and drop in air speed. Then a change in pressure. Perhaps a door being opened. Perhaps somebody getting in? What do you think of my story, Keith?”
“You are a total wanker, Ben!” said Keith turning to face his tormentor.
“Whoopee! Choo! Choo!” Ben was delighted and pulled on the cord of an imaginary steam train whistle.
A mass of crew, in white uniforms and black armour, were still edging cautiously into the lounge from the corridor. Ben’s goons were now brandishing their firearms. At a subvocalised command from Qendrim, a few guns turned away from the advancing crew towards the passengers.
“Come on, guys!” Ben said, supposedly shocked by the uncouth display of violence. “Keith won’t make any trouble, will you, Keith?”
Keith looked around at the five heavies brandishing weapons. He fantasised for a few seconds, picturing himself standing up and beating Ben to death with one of the restaurant’s almost weightless, aluminium, dining chairs. There was not a lot of clout to them; it would require repeated beating, there would be a lot of blood and wailing—
“You know, you can’t shoot those in here, right Ben?” said Keith. “I mean, we both know you’re a couple of clowns short of a circus, but even you wouldn’t shoot a gun inside a vacuum balloon, right?”
“Me?” Ben said, pointing at the side of his head and lolling out his tongue. “Sure, I know that. But look at Mergim here. Look at the way his forehead slopes back from his eyebrows. Not a lot of frontal lobe in that skull. Thick as pig shit. Poor impulse control. Easily provoked. I bet even now he’s picturing blasting some cabbage out the back of my head. Am I wrong, Mergim?”
The bull-like mass of barely suppressed anger looked blankly at Ben, saying nothing and keeping his gun firmly pointed
at Keith.
“I think we can take that as a yes!” Ben grinned.
A familiar voice spoke in Keith’s ear. “This has gone on long enough. Stand by for violence…”
Almost immediately, a high-pitched scream drilled into Keith’s head. He was too preoccupied with a mounting compressive pain in his skull to notice that the others were also wincing in apparent agony. The metal cutlery, trays and even the aluminium chairs all began leaping, vibrating or hurling themselves around indiscriminately, as if being molested by an enthusiastic poltergeist. Recovering some awareness, Keith realised this was all collateral effect. The same magnetic event had animated the goons’ guns, forcing them in a single instantaneous motion to smash into their brandishers’ faces.
A humming vibration continued to shake every conducting object in the room. Two of the goons had collapsed to the floor unconscious, after clubbing themselves brutally in the face with their heavy guns. The others stood incongruously, grimacing as they strained against their own weapons firmly jammed to the sides of their heads.
Keith recognised the voice in his ear. It belonged to his erstwhile chauffeur. He theorised the Torch must be back and had somehow taken control of the Xepplin’s superconducting magnets and now was using them to deflect metallic objects in the lounge.
“Fuck you!” Mergim grunted, straining against the eddy current-induced electro kinetic deflection of his firearm. There was a sudden colossal bang; then a sharp crack as the gun was ripped from a suddenly limp hand and smashed into the polycarbonate window. A new, whistling scream asserted itself as the atmosphere in the lounge began to get sucked through the hole that the bullet—after leaving Mergim’s skull—had punctured in the lounge’s skin. Finally, last in the chain of events, there was a subtle crumpling thud as Mergim’s twitching body collapsed to the floor.
“Jesus!” shouted Ben. “What the fuck?!”
“It wasn’t me,” said the voice in Keith’s ear. “He pulled the trigger himself.”
“Shit, shit, shit!” Ben continued.
The crew immediately rushed in and the remaining thugs were quickly disarmed, their wrists zip-tied behind them. Once it perceived the danger was past, the Torch amped down the magnetic fields. The tinnitus and rattling stopped, leaving only the sucking of departing air.
“Are we going to die?” Ben asked, pointing anxiously to the whistling hole.
A crewman ignored him as he pushed Ben calmly out of the way and pressed a cork placemat to the rupture. The sound ceased.
“Is that everything, Ben?” asked Keith. “Anything else up your sleeve? More pointless carnage you want to inflict on anybody today?”
A white-uniformed crewman in a bulletproof vest and riot helmet sidled up to Ben with a restraining zip-tie at the ready.
“What the hell? Are you sneaking up on me? Get the fuck away! There is no way you are cuffing me!”
Keith sighed. “Leave him.”
The crew perked up, standing to attention and saluting as their captain joined the party.
“We’ve got aircraft closing in,” the captain said to the room in general, but looking pointedly at Ben. “We’re going to climb. Let me take a look at the damage.”
A crewman pointed to the ad hoc repair. They watched as the captain picked at a corner, wincing in anticipation; but the mat came away cleanly. The hole had already been filled from behind with a pink foam, which they could see protruding slightly from the circular puncture.
“All good here. Take her up,” said the captain to nobody in particular.
“Yes, sir!” said the voice in Keith’s ear.
A new sound, a huge groaning and screeching, filled the space as the hypersonic superfluid circling the skin’s perimeter accelerated; straining further against the weight of air pressing in the Xepplin’s vacuum envelope; growing the bubble of space. The noise was accompanied by a perceptible acceleration. The experience was similar to standing in a quickly ascending elevator.
“Sit down, Mr Baphmet,” said the Xepplin’s captain as the trussed-up BHJ security team was led away. Keith wondered if the Xepplin came equipped with a jail.
Ben sauntered nonchalantly over to the table Keith had been sitting at. “Mind if I join you?”
“Whatever. Sit.”
“Sorry, ladies and gentlemen. We are now closed,” said a steward. He politely began ushering the remaining passengers out of the lounge, guiding them professionally around the slippery hazard of Mergim’s crumpled body, his left leg still twitching intermittently as an impressive rich crimson pool expanded across the floor.
The ashen guests left. An elegant elderly lady, pressing a napkin to her face, showed every sign of an imminent emetic episode. With buckets and mops—as if murder was routine—the crew set to work removing the collateral damage.
“Military aircraft are approaching,” the captain said, matter-of-factly. “We will not reach international air space before they intercept.”
“What are our options?” Keith asked.
He had addressed the question to the captain, but the synthesised lilting voice of the Torch answered instead. “Comply with requests to deliver all captive BHJ personnel and the key person of interest in the London bombing. Or not comply with requests.”
Keith looked again at the captain, who shrugged. “The full security ops team is online. They are interfacing directly with the autopilot.”
Keith could imagine the frenzied conversations ricocheting backwards and forwards and was glad he was just a passenger today.
A few seconds later, the voice was back. “We are recommended not to comply, Captain.”
“Good. My thoughts too. They have to be bluffing.”
Keith had stood and followed the captain to where he had taken station at the bow window. He followed the older man’s gaze and caught two points of sunlight rising above the faded green and brown haze. He lost them for a few seconds as they passed through a blanket of cloud surrounding the island, but then spotted the aircraft as they moved into clear blue air. The points gradually resolved into sleek, metallic darts; they were basic twentieth-century designs, compared to the Sky Whale with its superconducting/super-insulating skin, its magneto-plasma-dynamics, its biomimetic muscles, and its bubble of vacuum kept open with the incomparable strength of hypersonic superfluid tensegrity. The aircraft were Palaeolithic sharpened darts in comparison, pushed along by puffing the exhaust of burning oil out their butts. They were armed with pointy metal fireworks, which, however so primitive, would be sufficient to turn the Xepplin’s exquisite symphony of technology into the din of a rugby club karaoke.
“You’re not seriously going to resist, are you?” Ben was incredulous.
“We are guessing the Forward air force will not risk shooting down the son of their biggest contractor...”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Even Ben wasn’t entirely sure whether the captain was bluffing or not.
The two aircraft hurtled over the Xepplin.
“Fuck!” Ben gripped hold of the sides of his table for support against the buffeting. The aircraft had passed only a few metres away; a warning.
“I am seeing their weapon systems coming online,” the Torch announced. “The aircraft are turning.”
“So, shall I call George and have him tell them to stand down?” Ben asked, unable to hide the slight whine of tension in his voice.
“No need,” said the captain.
“Right, sure. Yeah, they’re bluffing.”
“Are you nervous, Ben?” Keith asked. “You don’t really think George would shoot you?”
“Nah, of course not!” Ben replied.
Unlike Ben, Keith had faced violent, life-terminating scenarios in the past. He wouldn’t say staring into the face of annihilation had become routine, but facing death with the knowledge that Ben would go too, and in a humiliating manner, was making the situation almost enjoyable.
The aircraft had completed their turns and were heading back towards them.
“We ar
e apparently being given one more chance,” a crewman, monitoring communications, informed them.
Keith thought he saw a puff of smoke as the Forward jets hurtled past for a second time.
“We’ve been hit,” the Torch said. “A single shell. Straight through. Punctures of inner and outer membranes. No casualties.”
“Bloody hell! Your father really does hate you as much as everybody else!” said Keith.
The captain turned and gave Keith a look, prompting him to get a grip. He should know by now that Ben would always bring out the worst in him. He shouldn’t rise to it.
“The aircraft are banking again,” the Torch informed them.
“That was apparently the warning shot,” the captain said.
“We just crossed into international waters, sir,” said the crewman.
