Falling Ark

by Leigh Snelson

  His face lit up at the idea of owning the worlds energy production.

  One of the final rooms was all about demonstrating some of Tony’s regeneration techniques.

  “Please, if you don’t mind, place your hands within the slime.” I suggested. Once again, he hesitated so I put mine in first.

  I was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and put my hands in all the way up to my elbows. I had done this multiple times already today and there was no noticeable difference, my skin looked amazing before and after.

  Then Mr Cohen dipped his hands in, all the way up to his elbows, just like me. His arms came out looking like a twenty-year old. Gone were the scars, scratches and dead skin on his hands and out came skin that looked brand new, tight and blemish free.

  He turned to me in astonishment.

  “I have hired the best plastic surgeons in the world try to remove a scar in the middle of my hand.” He started to explain. “I come on board your ship and you make it disappear within seconds. I don’t understand how this works, but I know I need more of this!” He started to unbutton his shirt, preparing to take a bath in the slime.

  “All in good time” I said and gestured that we move on with the tour, sensing his disappointment.

  The truth was, we knew about his scar. He was very public about trying to get it removed and offered rewards for anyone who knew how.

  Sam had lined up little gimmicks like this at the end of the tour for every guest. With the background checks Ava performed she also tried to discover anything that we could use to really impress them. This had allowed us to line up a final display of powerful science that would remain in their memories.

  One person had a scar down his face so Sam had pulled the same trick, wiping the slime on the fractured skin and within seconds the scar had patched itself up, just like new. Needless to say, they were pleased with the result.

  A political leader from Italy had just discovered that they had a certain type of cancer. Tony had assured us that consuming one of his many potions could cure it. Of course, the diplomate wouldn’t discover this until their next check-up but they took the drink and we hoped for the best.

  There was a range of these final events, not all related to biology, to impress the different leaders who had flown in specifically to meet us.

  One Japanese lady wanted to build massive floating skyscrapers in Tokyo harbour with the gravity drives so we demonstrated how that would work. The Chinese diplomat envisioned floating trains over their vast country to move items and people without the need to complete their massive road and rail infrastructure projects.

  An American delegate came on board after we refused the president who wanted an entourage of security to accompany him. Just like everyone else who made this request, we declined.

  The delegate, who was from the military branch seemed very interested in going back to the moon and mining asteroids. She was asking questions about the speed and capacity of the drives, but I stayed muted on the exact details.

  All this interest was exactly what we were looking for and I looked forward to the political pressure that would be placed on Lara in the coming days.

  Finally, I returned Mr Cohen to the airlock where an automated plane, flown by one of the crew, remotely, was ready to take him back down to his huge superyacht. That night he would tell all his friends what he had seen, hopefully remembering the final speech we gave all the guests.

  “All of this technology has been locked away for years in VisionTechs vault. We think it’s time that it was given to someone who could put it to use, rather than hide it from the world. Do you know why that magic cream is not used in hospitals around the world? VisionTech have created a dumbed down version. Next year they are set to release a slightly better version and then in a few years’ time they release an improved version again. Lara has a one hundred year roll out plan for this stuff, which is fine if you’re Lara and are using this stuff to live forever, but we think it should be available now.”

  I entered the control tower after a hard day’s work hanging out with rich and powerful people and keeping the world’s attention on our flying funfair.

  “Well done everybody!” Sam said as he pointed to the screens around the room. Different news channels were displaying interviews with the delegates who had come aboard as they tried to describe what they had seen today. We were certainly creating a buzz.

  I gazed out of the window, watching the sun starting to set and in the back of my mind I hoped we had done the right thing.

  We still had planes coming and going to various locations. These were now decoy flights. We thought that if it looked like we were still picking people up then we would still be protected from Lara who we were sure would still be watching us.

  “Now that we have gone public, how do you feel?” Sam asked, putting a glass of orange juice in my hand.

  I didn’t drink alcohol but right now I understood why people did.

  “Terrified! How do we know that we have done the right thing?” I asked.

  “Don’t worry, it’s plain sailing to Bills ranch. That was the point of all this. Just try to relax and we’ll be there in no time, you did well today!” Sam reassured me.

  The clouds started to grow smaller below the ship, indicating that we were gaining altitude again. This would be the last time; we go off the radar, high up in the atmosphere where we hoped Lara wouldn’t be able to track us and then descend quickly into Bills ranch while Bill and Ava separately try to hide our tracks.

  The words of the British Deputy Prime Minster kept on ringing through my head. She was convinced that releasing all this technology would cause huge economic upheaval and that businesses wouldn’t survive. Was she correct? Or was she holding on to an outdated goal, protecting the rich business owners at the expense of everyone else.

  I looked around the room and everyone was merry. Tony and Julie were talking to some of the crew about something technical, the crew listening intensely. Bill was sitting with the captain, drinking something neat from the bottle, both with a big smiles on their faces. Derek was sitting around the holographic table with some of the crew playing cards, I guess they hadn’t learnt he doesn’t play fair. Hank had just walked in and was pouring himself a drink before he walked over and sat with Bill and the captain.

  “You enjoy this, you deserve it, I’m going to go and check on Ava.” I informed Sam.

  “Good idea.” He said, and he gave me a wink before I left.

  As I reached the refrigeration area Ava was busy watching a collection of screens she had set up, camera feeds displayed on all of them.

  “Why don’t you come up?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so.” She replied, watching the cameras with intense scrutiny.

  “Bill doesn’t seem that bad. He has helped us out today.” I explained.

  “Bill and I have a history. I am surprised Sam didn’t tell you.” She replied, her eyes unmoving.

  It seemed so lonely down here, watching the party through the monitors. It was only when she spoke, when I heard her voice that I realised she wasn’t lonely, she was angry.

  “Sam hasn’t told me anything, but I am willing to listen if you like. We are heading to Bills ranch, are you going to stay on the ship and hide down here the whole time?” I asked and I leant down and put another coat over her back.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you want to talk about it? What did Bill do to you?” I asked but expected one of her trademark scowls.

  “It’s not what he did to me.” Ava replied, opening up on the subject for the first time. “It was what he did to my mum.”

  “What? Your mum? How did your mum know Bill?” I probed again, feeling that I was about to hit a brick wall soon.

  “Well…” Ava started. “Bill came to England twenty-seven years ago on a business trip and met my mother. They were both working on completing a company merger, he was buying a company and she was a secretary to the company being sold. He stayed for a month
in the local town, checking all the details, making sure the deal was correct, then he went back to America, never to be heard from again.”

  “Twenty-seven years ago, you must have only been a baby?” I asked.

  “I wasn’t even born.” Ava replied as she looked down at her laptop, staring at Bill through the monitor. “It would be another nine months before I would be born.”

  “Oh!” I said, realising what she meant. “Does he know?”

  “Yes, he knows. He reached out to me a few years ago. We met, caught up, then he set me to work hacking together a program that would help his company develop more insight into customers. You see, once he found out what I was capable of he only wanted me for what I could bring to his company, not because of who I was.”

  “His daughter.” I said, unveiling the elephant in the room. “Come on up. I’ll say I have just arrived, and I came to get you off the plane. I’ll look after you up there.”

  Ava looked at me with her big brown eyes through the multicoloured hair and I could see she was close to tears.

  “You have worked as hard as everyone else and you deserved to enjoy the success.” I said. I wasn’t going to let one-person ruin that for her. “Come on, your safe with me.”

  I put out my hand and helped her to her feet. She stumbled forward and landed in my arms with a clatter. We both laughed and it broke the tension. I held her hand for support until we got closer to the control room. Then the nerves hit her again.

  “Come on. You deserve it! You do this for me and I’ll help you with Lovelace as much as I can!” I bargained.

  “Fine!” Ava finally agreed. “But I’ve seen your programming skills, you’re not going anywhere near Lovelace!”

  A few moments later and we walked into the control room. Bills eyes immediately darted to Ava. She didn’t look at him, not once, for the entire time we were there, but she did have a good time talking to the rest of the crew and even beating Derek at a game of cards!

  Chapter 24

  The sky was clear as we descended into Bills ranch from high in the atmosphere. We took the decision to go high for the final part of the journey to try and hide our tracks and Ava was working hard to make sure we didn’t show up on any computer network.

  The fall was quick, but the gravity drives kept the ship smooth and level, if you didn’t look down at the ground you wouldn’t be able to tell that we were screaming out of the air faster than normal gravity would allow. The gravity drives were programmed to keep a buffer of air between the ship and the atmosphere to avoid the hull heating up on re-entry and it was working perfectly.

  Bills ranch came into view below and Derek applied the brakes, slowing our decent and floating silently down onto the lake in the middle of the small country that Bill called his ‘Primary Residence’.

  His ranch was huge. The holodisplay outlined the boundary of the estate on the map as we descended. The container ship that we flew was huge but, on this scale, it was merely a dot. The map was cluttered with small forests, hills and cliffs along with large areas of grassland. In the centre there was a large lake with several streams either feeding into it or flowing away from it.

  On the north shore of the lake was the housing complex that Bill called his home. This again was huge, as you would expect from one of the world’s richest.

  “That’s one big home!” I commented as the buildings came into view out of the control room window.

  “Yes, it is, but it is all functional.” Bill replied, trying to hide his modesty.

  “How big is that barn in the middle?” I asked.

  “That is the main living area. It’s where I spend most of my time.” Bill explained. “Off to the side, that is the main bedroom wing and over this way is the staff and office section.”

  “You have offices in your home?”

  “When your company as big as mine you can’t afford not to. It is the curse of the job.”

  As I gazed out of the window I could see the buildings. A large barn structure in the middle with many smaller buildings snaking around it ranging from one to four storeys high and they all oozed luxury. There was also a large fountain at the front, which connected to a long, straight driveway that seemed to disappear over the horizon. At the rear, backing onto the lake was the patio area with outdoor pools and slides, a hedge maze and large gardens of perfectly kept flowers. There were kings and queens that would envy the scale of this place.

  Little paths led away from the main house which stood a couple hundred metres from the lake. These paths led down to little cottages and smaller houses at the lake side. These were just as extravagant, each built in a different style from classical French, to a mock English castle. One was even styled on a Japanese theme and as they littered the side of the lake, they looked more like something out of an amusement park.

  “What are those buildings for?” I asked, pointing to the themed buildings on the lake.

  “Those are the guest houses. My staff are preparing one for you now. I assume you want to sleep somewhere more comfortable tonight?”

  “You mean an actual bed? That would be nice!” I commented.

  “Hey!” Sam shouted from across the room. “Are my beds not good enough for you?”

  The beds in the Armillary and the container ship were very functional, but they certainly had not been built with luxury in mind.

  “It would just be nice to wake up with less aches and pains than I went to sleep with.” I quipped back.

  “Look at Mr Fancy over there.” Sam turned to Derek and jested. “Next he’ll want hot water for a proper shower!”

  The ship came to a halt as it slowly sunk into the water, creating little waves that lapped up on the shore. To everyone’s relief it still floated. We couldn’t be sure after all the stresses we had put on the vessel, but it was perfectly at home back in the water. It looked completely out of place next to the woods and tiny rivers, and even though this was a large lake, the ship took up its fair share of the view. The beautiful setting, several mansions adorning the still waters of a lake with peaceful meadows and lovely gardens and our huge boat overpowering it all was a strange sight.

  Initially I thought we would be taking the lifeboats ashore, as did the crew. They started to unpack them when Sam reminded us that we had a fleet of gravity defying planes that could easily shuttle us over to the house. It was going to take a while to get used to this technology.

  The crew and the captain decided that they would remain on the boat for the first night. Bill had ordered a fleet of trucks to deliver supplies for us, and they stayed behind to unpack the supplies. There were already some trucks of food and equipment waiting just outside the main office building and Bill gave us the go ahead bring them aboard.

  We had modified a couple of the planes with large magnets dangling from their fuselages that we stole off the cranes. This meant they could now pick up and move containers much easier than before. This made a lot of the initial reconfiguration of the ship easier as we didn’t have to always depend on the slow cranes that flanked each side of the vessel. The planes started to fly out, pick up the containers off the trailers and fly back to ship where the rest of the crew were ready to unload the contents.

  I was excited to get back to dry land and I was a bit overly enthusiastic about staying in one of the guest houses.

  “It’s going to be nice to have a bit of comfort.” I mentioned as I walked next to Ava down towards the hanger bays.

  “Yes, I suppose it will.” She replied, not sharing my enthusiasm.

  “Come on. It won’t be that bad. Just put up with him for a couple of nights and see what happens.” I tried to re-assure her.

  “Just promise me that you will stay around and not leave me alone, I can’t be held responsible for my actions.”

  I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or not, it was difficult to tell if Ava was being serious or sarcastic when it came to Bill.

  “I’m here for you. Whatever you need.” I finally decided was the b
est reply.

  We watched the first plane leave with Bill, Sam, Hank and Derek and we met Tony and Julie standing by the second plane waiting for us to board.

  “You missed a funny sight, seeing Hank trying to get into the front of the plane.” Tony said.

  “I can imagine.” I replied. “We really need to think about re-designing these things.”

  After we had all got inside Julie took control and drifted us over to the shore where some of Bills staff had set up a welcome party, ready to hand us drinks after we put the craft down on the perfectly manicured lawns.

  Inside Bills house I was struck by how stark and minimalistic everything was. This setting, in the woods, next to the lake, I was expecting a rustic interior, log cabin style, but this was completely different with white walls and simple furniture.

  He had photographs of his family around the main living area. The three storey, open plan barn area overlooked the lake and had massive floor to ceiling windows which allowed us to see the sun setting in the distance. The main decorative feature of the building was in the exposed stone walls that were pitted and marked, like the building was steeped in history, even though I was fairly certain that Bill had only built the place recently and the markings were too uniform and regular, not authentic looking at all.

  Bill showed us around the main facility, excusing the absence of his family who were still on the yacht off the coast of Norway where he had left them.

  Looking at the pictures I saw that Bills wife was closer to my age than his, maybe a few years my senior, and there were photos of three kids, two very young maybe ten and twelve, and one who was in his mid-twenties. It must be a second wife, or third. Bill sure knew how to get around.

  Ava was watching me the whole time. She caught me staring at the pictures and I instinctively turned my gaze and wandered over to her, this must be hard for her and I wasn’t helping.

  She had been very quiet. Making sure she was on a separate plane to Bill and she had not said a single word since we landed. The night was growing long and now might be the perfect chance to get away from all this and give her bit of relief. I couldn’t relate to what she was going through, but she obviously didn’t like the man.