ARIA
Page 33
“Oh, you’re back, are you? Before I could thank you properly.”
“I assumed you meant our Megan had got off the plane and joined you in Calgary. I know it’s laughable, now.”
“Yeah, but your friend, Antonio, is a real card.”
“He was, but I didn’t realize you’d remember him.”
“You are amusing, Ryder. He’s sitting right here, having a warm Coke. He’s been reminding us about ourselves. He knew both of us quite well, you know.”
Ryder’s neck hairs bristled. “Just a minute, Manuel, there must be some mistake. Maybe to do with your second-case exposure. You can’t possibly be talking to Dr Antonio Menzies.” Looking at the screen, Ryder saw Manuel smiling then the image rotated, bringing in Julia, who winked. The image continued to an old magazine with a photograph of Saturn. The magazine dropped.
“Ciao, Ryder,” Antonio said. “My wounds are healing nicely, thank you. Give my regards to Rarotonga, won’t you?”
Ryder couldn’t speak. His left hand lashed out, hurting it on a wall strut.
“He’s come back to life?” Abdul said.
“Is that Abdul I can hear?” Antonio said. “Was it you or Jena I have to thank for the bumps-a-daisy landing?”
“If I’d known you were a stowaway,” Jena said, “I would have banged it down a lot harder. You must have been in the back of the pickup when we left Anafon. Not bad for a corpse.”
“You always jump to the wrong conclusions, Jena.”
Ryder tasted bile. He’d been responsible for putting a psychopath together with his old friend Manuel and another innocent. Not just any plain psychopathic killer, but one infected with an alien virus giving him God-knows-what extra powers.
“I know what you are thinking,” Antonio said. “But don’t worry, the bloodletting has steadied me. I’ll look after your friends. After all, I’m a doctor, right?”
“I’m glad to hear it.” He perspired trying hard to think of mollifying arguments. “An example of physician, heal thyself?”
“Very apt, but I had a little help.”
“You said I could go with you,” Megan said from the doorway. She stood with her arms folded.
“You are with me in spirit, young Megan. You helped me more than you know. Hey, you others, don’t blame her. You could say I had her under my spell. Hah!”
“Do you have my friends under your spell?”
“He sure does,” Manuel said. “A charming man. He’s coming with us to the cabin to recuperate from his accident injuries.”
“That’s good,” Ryder said. His real terror was shown to the others by his perspiration, and waving them back in case they said something inflammatory.
“We’d better be on our way now, Ryder,” Manuel said. “Just in case people hearing the plane come to investigate, and I want to reach the cabin before it gets dark. Have a good journey and keep in touch.”
“Will do, Manuel. Take care, all of you,” Ryder said, shaking as he signed off.
Apart from Megan, who grumbled until her headphones turned her to humming and swaying, everyone took five minutes to settle their mental contortions.
Teresa said, “I’ll send Julia a message via her NoteCom. It’s not switched on at the moment, but I expect it will be when they reach the cabin.”
“You’d have to be careful what you say,” Ryder said.
“Naturally, I can’t just say what we know. I have to assume Antonio might get it first. And I can’t use technospeak because he’s a doctor.”
“He’s not a virologist though,” Gustav said. “I’m sure we could come up with something that sounds harmless but which indicates there is a serious problem with Antonio’s particular pathology.”
“Go for that,” Ryder said.
“There is another angle,” Jena said. “Antonio might be right. He could be going through metabolic changes, and the crazed part might have been a one-off.”
“That’s wishful thinking coming from the Queen of the Hard Nuts,” Teresa said.
“He didn’t harm Megan,” Abdul said. “Maybe he considered us a threat while his brain was changing. While there’s life, there’s hope.”
“You’re right, Abdul,” Ryder said. “Your glass is always half full, even when it’s really empty.” They all laughed at the accurate observation. “We still don’t know the aliens’ intentions. For all we know, they’ve gone for good, thinking they’ve done us some kind of favour.”
“Or they might be back thinking there’s just a few special humans left to either greet as fellow beings or as slaves for the taking,” Jena said.
Gustav leaned back in his chair. “You are such a source of comfort.”
“That is so true,” Ryder said, making Jena laugh softly in agreement.
BRONWYN STAGGERED INTO THE COCKPIT. She held out an airline plastic tray with plastic cups filled with twenty-year-old whiskey.
“It is good to see you on your feet again, Bronwyn,” Abdul said.
“I would like us all to toast your thought of a minute ago. Where there’s life, there’s hope.”
They all repeated “Hope” and allowed the warming amber liquid to give them a well-deserved glow.
THE WARMTH TRAVELLED THROUGH RYDER, settling fears and building optimism. Through him, his fellow travellers, through the aircraft, and out through its jet exhausts as it left the American continent. There, at five miles high above the Pacific Ocean, the plane carrying a miracle case and seven bold optimists flew with expectation to tomorrow.
The euphoria lasted twenty minutes. After that, Ryder’s attempts to snooze were snagged by stabs, flashes of Antonio’s flashing teeth and taunts. What was the egomaniac going to do in Canada, and to Manuel and Julia? Who and what were the aliens up to? Hopefully, they’d leave Ryder’s group alone on a tiny South Pacific island, but he somehow knew this was only the beginning of the endgame.
Read
ARIA: Returning Left Luggage
Never has Earth faced such problems. Survivors are either in hiding or slaves to aliens. How does Ryder’s group prevent ARIA-infected boat people invading their island? Something alien stirs in France where free students live off their wits. A sliver of hope in America but the mad doctor could ruin everything. Is a girl in Australia, Earth’s salvation? Never a dull moment as ARIA and Zadokians change Earth forever.
Geoff Nelder has a wife, two grown-up kids, an increasing number of grandkids, and lives in rural England within an easy cycle ride of the Welsh mountains. He taught Geography and Information Technology for years until writing took over his life. Geoff’s an occasional competition short-fiction judge, and is a freelance editor.
Publications include several non-fiction books on climate reflecting his other persona as a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society; over 50 published short stories in various magazines and anthologies; thriller, humour, science fiction, and fantasy novels. Recent publications include:
2005: Escaping Reality - a humorous thriller.
2008: Exit, Pursued by a Bee – an award-winning science fiction mystery with a hot-blooded heroine.
2010: Hot Air - another thriller that received an Award d’Or from an Arts Academy in the Netherlands. It’s third edition will be published in 2012.
An urban and historical magic realism fantasy, Xaghra’s Revenge, is in the hands of a literary agency.
Visit Geoff’s website: geoffnelder.com
http://facebook.com/geoffnelder
http://www.twitter.com/geoffnelder
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Oops!
By Darrell Bain
ISBN: 978-1-905091-72-0 (print) / 978-1-905091-73-7 (ebook)
Oops! is the third collection of stories by Darrell Bain. When Cupid and a Gremlin bump heads, the sparks fly in a rare fantasy story by the author. Other stories in the collection include A Simple Idea, an almost ludicrously simple method of eliminating corruption and idiocy from the political process, one that has been around for centuries but gone unrecognized. Cure for an Ailing Alien finds a nurse who must come up with a cure for an alien, one whose bodily processes are completely unknown. You’ll be amazed at her cure! Retribution is the story of unexpected consequences when alien meets human. Robyn’s Rock is partially based on a happening in the author’s life during a walk with his granddaughter.
There are many more stories in this collection, all written in the individual style that has kept Bain’s readers coming back for more for the past twenty years. This a book to add to your collection, stories by a notable, multi-award winning author.
Bark!
By Darrell Bain
ISBN: 978-1-905091-15-7 (print)
Find out what happens when Tonto, a little, ADHD affected, one-testicled weenie dog, turns out to be the only thing standing between the Earth and accidental alien invasion!
Pure comic genius from multiple award-winning author Darrell Bain. Also includes the autobiography of the real Tonto, the little dog who inspired the story!