“What is it?” Tom asked.
“Something happened, Dad. I saw something out there.”
“What? What did you see?” Tom undid his belt and immediately looked out the window. But it was too late. They were already too high and probably too far from what Owen saw. Whatever it was.
The forced sudden speed up of the plane slowed down and the plane felt as if it were leveling off.
Gabe peered over. “Owen, what did you see?”
At that point it was apparent Owen wasn’t the only one who saw something happening on the ground.
Chaotic voices erupted, emotional and out of control.
“Did you see that?” someone said.
“Anyone see that? Oh my God.”
“What was that? Anyone know?”
“What did you see? I didn’t see anything.”
“That’s why we didn’t land, what was it?”
“Owen!” Gabe snapped. “What did you see?”
“I don’t even know how to begin to describe it,” Owen replied.
The nasty woman in the seat in front of Gabe, suddenly not only turned around but changed her entire demeanor. “Please try, what was it?”
Because of his age and the era in which he grew up, Tom thought he knew. “Owen, was it a nuclear weapon?”
“I don’t know, Dad,” Owen replied.
“Oh God,” Nasty woman explained. “My kids. My kids.” She grabbed for her purse and pulled out her phone.
“Should she be doing that?” Tom asked Gabe. “Will that make us crash?”
“No,” Gabe replied. “It may or may not work. We won’t crash.”
Tom looked around. It seemed everyone was pulling out their cell phones. Tom reached for his from the pocket in the seat before him. Just as he switched it from airplane mode, he heard the alert tones.
“Ladies and gentlemen, no need for concern,” the pilot said. “We …” He stopped talking then mumbled something about not being heard.
Tom got that. He had a hard time hearing him. He wished everyone would shut up and stop talking. It was hard enough to decipher what the captain was saying with those fans and engine noises, but the chaos on the plane worsened it.
Finally, one of the attendants shouted his loudest. “Everyone quiet! Now! The Captain is trying to make an announcement.”
The voices quieted to mutters and finally silence.
Tom watched the flight attendant speak into a phone near the front of the plane, then the tones rang out again.
“Thank you for your patience,” the captain said. “Seems to be just a slight problem on the ground. We’re going to circle McLaren for a spell, and we will land. No worries, we’ll have you in Vegas shortly. Thank you.”
Click.
Tom exhaled, everything was alright. But still on a high level of anxiety, Tom jumped in his seat, and his phone nearly toppled from his hand when it vibrated out of control.
“What’s going on?” Gabe asked.
“Is that your phone?” asked Owen.
“Yeah.” Tom looked down.
Eight missed calls from Gene.
“Uncle Gene tried to call …” Tom jumped again when his phone vibrated again as it announced an incoming call.
“It’s Uncle Gene,” Tom hurriedly and nervously answered it. “Gene, what’s going on?”
“Oh, thank God,” Gene sounded muffled.
“Gene, I can barely hear you. You sound like you’re talking from inside a can.”
“I am.”
“What?” Tom asked. “What does that mean?”
“Can you hear me now?” Gene spoke slower and louder.
“Yes.”
“Tom are you and the boys still on the plane? Are you still in the air?” he asked.
“We are,” Tom answered. “Why?”
“Good. Good. Now listen carefully. Whatever you do, whatever it takes, do what you need to do, whatever it is …” Gene said. “Do not let the plane land.”
SIX – FRET
“Sir,” the female flight attendant told Tom. “You need to get back into your seat.”
If she only knew how much nerve it took for him to get out of that seat and walk up front, she’d give him a chance to speak.
“Listen, I …”
“No, you listen,” she said. “Get back to your seat.”
Tom looked over his shoulder to his boys then back to the attendant. “Ma’am, I know you have a job to do. I do. But please listen to what I am telling you.” He dropped his voice to an even lower level. “My friend is a geologist with the government. He sent me this text to show the pilot. I don’t need to see him, but can you please, please just take him my phone.”
She inhaled hard and slow through her nostrils, glanced down to the phone and then back to Tom.
“Just … right there. You can read it.” Tom showed her the phone again.
Her lips puckered as she stifled her reaction to reading the message. “Will you take you seat if I do this?”
“Yes, yes, I will. Thank you.” Tom turned around and walked back down the aisle. People looked at him, some shook their heads giving glances of disapproval probably because they thought he was breaking a rule.
He reclaimed his seat. “Out of my hands now.”
Owen leaned into him. “Maybe the pilot will call Uncle Gene.”
“Maybe,” Tom said.
Owen sighed. “Dad, what I saw, it looked like a massive geyser erupted, like a flaming steam.”
Gabe asked leaning over the aisle. “Is that what we’re avoiding?”
“All I know, is it has to be more than just Vegas,” Tom replied. “Or else he would have told us to land somewhere else.”
“But he said not to land?” Gabe asked. “Dad, we cannot stay up here indefinitely.”
“I know. How long do you think we can?” Tom asked Gabe. “I mean, you fly so what do you think?”
“No more than four hours,” Gabe replied.
With an, “Okay, alright,” Nasty woman undid her seat belt and stood.
“Ma’am,” the flight attendant called out. “Please sit down.”
“I will,” Nasty woman replied, stepped into Tom’s row and took the empty seat between Tom and Owen.
“Um, excuse me,” Gabe said. “You’re in their space.”
“I know. And I am so sorry for being mean, I am. I’m sorry about your foot,” she said. “I’m sorry but …” She looked to Tom then Owen. “Obviously, you guys know something. I heard you say it’s more than Vegas, whatever it is that is happening.”
“We think it is,” Tom replied.
“Dad,” Gabe snapped. “Don’t tell her anything.”
“Why?” Tom asked. “Why not? Heck, I’d stand up and tell the whole damn plane if I understood exactly what Uncle Gene was trying to say.”
“What was he saying?” Nasty woman asked.
“Ma’am,” the flight attended approached the row. “I realize this is a stressful time, but you need to return to your seat … now, please. Thank you.”
“I will.” She stood and looked at Tom. “Please, anything you hear, let me know. I’m worried about my family.”
Tom nodded.
She slipped from the row and returned to her seat. The flight attendant watched her, making sure she did as she requested. When the attendant turned, another flight attendant whispered in her ear, she turned back around and approached Tom.
“Sir,” she said. “The Captain would like to see you.”
Tom didn’t know there was even a curtain there, until the captain pulled it closed as he stood with Tom in that tiny area between the main cabin and the cockpit.
“First, I want to thank you,” the Captain said, handing him back his phone. “Thank you for sharing that information with me. What I had been given was very vague.”
“Glad I could help. What were you told?” Tom asked.
“Not much. Just there was an emergency on the ground and we were to pull up as fast as possible and get t
o thirty thousand feet. That something happened, but we lost all communication.”
“Gene, my friend, makes it sound bad.”
“By what he said, yeah,” the captain exhaled his last word. “Yeah, it is.”
“We’re still in a pickle, aren’t we?”
“We are in a big pickle. He says we can’t land until the toxic levels fall. The only positive to that is, he’s monitoring for us. Maybe he'll find us a place. Hopefully, he’ll find one soon. We don’t have more than three hours’ worth of fuel. Second, I have a hundred and fifty-three people out there wondering that the hell is going on. I don’t even know how to begin to explain this to them.”
“Maybe you don’t have to be the one to tell them. Maybe we can get someone else to do it.” Tom looked down at his phone and to the name ‘Gene’ that was on the top of the exposed message.
<><><><>
What to say, what not to say, it was as if the pilot was withholding things from the passengers, he just didn’t need chaos or any problems with them while flying.
Gene assured him he would only tell them what he knew.
Tom wondered if it even mattered at all.
They were at three hours and counting, the chances of them landing were still debatable.
Using one of those small but mighty Bluetooth speakers, they called Gene.
Only after the flight attendants and the captain informed the passengers that should they want to hear, they needed to be exceptionally quiet. Even then it was going to be hard to understand and hear Gene through what was some sort of oxygen mask. He had it attached to a small exterior speaker and put that speaker to the phone. The translation was still ‘tin can’ sounding.
Passengers seated in the noisier section of the plane huddled near the speakers.
Owen made a comment that it was like taking a red eye.
So quiet.
“My name is Dr. Gene Taylor with the United States Geographical studies,” Gene spoke slowly and enunciated. “Yesterday, morning, in Hardin, Montana, there was what we call a methane eruption. It released a deadly methane cloud that lingered over the town, killing everyone there in a matter of seven minutes. The levels remained dangerous for nearly four hours. We have narrowed it down to three hours and fifty minutes. Eruptions like this usually occur near the arctic regions when methane levels build up. This is earth’s way of relieving the pressure. Seeing how this freak occurrence was farther south was indicative of something worse. I could get into the history of it, but the bottom line is, something worse did occur.”
There was a brief mumbling of voices followed by many people calling out, “Shh.”
“I have been monitoring the situation since Hardin. We saw the levels rise. It was alarming. We had no idea this would occur, right now, so fast. Four hours ago, it began. Multitudes of eruptions or methane bombs have exploded globally, creating a deadly environment. Unless they are reported to me, I cannot pinpoint where they are, I can only monitor levels where we set up the stations. Seismic activity can aid in my making educated guesses on where they occurred and possibly could occur. I am working diligently with others to determine safe locations.”
Gene paused for a moment.
“There are factors that play into this. Weather. Wind patterns. Fortunately, we are tapped into monitoring stations. I have an expert in this right next to me. The methane clouds will dissipate and weaken. But the eruptions will continue until all pressure is relieved. When that will be, I cannot with certainty say. Right now, it is deadly on the ground. This is why you are still flying. This is why you cannot land. Not at this time. I am working to find a place. Good luck. I’ll be in touch.”
Then there was silence.
Tom guessed it was because Gene had no more to say. He knew his friend and knew by his serious tone, things were bad and prospects looked bleak.
He expected an eruption of questions and emotional talk, but those on the plane remained quiet and solemn.
There was a sadness that lingered in the air.
Tom saw it on his sons’ faces, they knew, like everyone else aboard the plane, more than likely, things were hopeless.
If all Tom had was three hours of life remaining, he was damned if he was going to spend it moping, being sad, or thinking of what could have been or what he should have done.
Every minute he had remaining from that moment on was a gift. One those on the ground did not get.
Tom wasn’t going to waste it.
He was going to absorb every moment he had left with his sons.
SEVEN – WATCHING
Naval Operations Support Center – Billings, MT
Gene threw his phone, not hard, not much, but enough for it to do a little spin on the counter.
“Hey, now,” Wiley Stevens said jokingly, rolling his chair over toward Gene. Like Gene, he wore a full-face oxygen mask. His station was behind Gene’s, Wiley watched the weather and satellites. “You still have calls to make,” he told Gene. “Lots.”
Gene groaned out exhausted like. “I want nothing more right now than to rub my eyes.” He looked down to the gauge of the oxygen tank. “We have more of these, right?”
“We do. You really think when the levels fall, another eruption will happen?”
“Yes, without a doubt.” Gene pointed up. “Look at these levels from our hot spots. They were lower three hours ago and now they’re rising again. They build, we have the eruptions, they go down and then back up. Almost like these four spots in the arctic are controlling it all.”
“Not a bad thing,” Wiley said.
“How can you say that?”
“Well, when they lower and stay lower, it’s over and things will become normalized.”
Gene chuckled. “Will it ever be normal again?”
“There’s not enough oxygen tanks for it not to be.”
“True.” Gene sighed out. “I just wish we knew where the eruptions were. Well, all of them.”
“You know, I think we’ve done some pretty good detective work, figuring out a bunch of them.”
“We had the monitoring station up last night. We just don’t know everywhere, I mean … for all we know, Cleveland could be fine.”
“They’re not. I called Papa John’s, there was no answer. Gainesville Florida is great, and we’re lucky, the university is helping.”
“They are.” Gene knew if it wasn’t for a bunch of college kids, their professor and their cell phones, they wouldn’t have any clue what was happening outside of the western United States.
On the west he was able to truly get a grip of where things happened, but the farther east, it was harder.
The students in Gainesville were calling local police stations and business in towns and communities across the state and country and scanning social media. It was a process of elimination.
Together, they all had a good idea of how widespread it was.
The entire country was affected.
Wiley was looking at satellite images from the International Space station to find the eruption holes, but it was hard, like finding a needle in a haystack.
Gene liked Wiley. A young man with a lot of energy. He had just met him hours beforehand, right before things went south. There were others that were working in labs on base, but Gene wasn’t in contact with them. Whether they got their oxygen on remained to be seen.
He’d find out.
Right then and there he was focused on the levels and the planes he had made contact with.
Color coded levels.
Green was normal, white was high and red was deadly.
Red methane levels readings flashed in various spots across his map of the united states.
They were spots he knew levels for sure. No guess work.
“Back to work,” Gene said. “We need to find landing spots.”
“They are circling right?” Wiley asked.
“All except two-twenty-nine to Houston. I move then closer to Little Rock because we’re monitoring Little Rocks levels
. When they drop, they can land.”
“Hardin dropped in four,” Wiley said. “There’s hope.”
“I’m certain the levels will drop enough for them to refuel, can they get there before running out is the question.”
“What about Flight Seventy-five fifty to Reston?” Wiley asked.
Gene lifted the phone. “Calling her now.”
He hooked up his small speaker close to the phone and dialed.
Susan answered right away. “Give me good news,” she said.
“Gainesville is still clear,” Gene replied. “Are you able to land there?”
“He thinks we have enough fuel to land there. How is Reston?”
“Levels are still high. Then again, they just started spiking two hours ago, so we still have two hours. Have you spoken to Bill and the kids?”
“They arrived at the tank in enough time.”
Gene exhaled. “Oh, good. Good.”
“I’m feeling guilty though,” Susan spoke soft. “So many people on this plane have family on the ground.”
“You didn’t know for sure it was going to happen today, while you were in the air. You didn’t know.”
“We felt it.”
“I know.”
“What about our earlier spoke locations?”
Wiley replied rolling to Gene’s side. “Look at Albany.” He pointed. “Oxygen levels are at fourteen percent, methane levels at four percent.”
Susan asked, “Does that mean the parts per million are at forty-thousand?”
“Looks that way,” Gene answered. “I mean Albany levels hit seventy-five thousand PPMs, three hours ago”
“What was two hours ago?”
“I … I don’t know,” Gene answered. “We’ve been nuts here. I have planes contacting other planes to find out where to land …”
“Albany will be good in an hour, I bet,” Wiley said. “We need to tell the Cleveland and Boston flight that.”
Gene nodded, then turned his attention back to Susan. “Focus on Gainesville. I’ll be in touch.”
“Try to get me readings from our Arctic stations,” she said.
Flight 3430 Page 4
