Echo was going to chat, but Franco was busy. She hung the headphones back on the hook.
She turned to see why Tom was so quiet. He had earbuds in.
He’s probably listening to Elvis.
A month ago, Tom even arranged a night of Karaoke for the few people on the base at the time. He wore a white flared Elvis jumpsuit, and he looked the part with his sideburns and aviator sunglasses. Echo was, along with everyone else, impressed at his vocal range, and the quirky uh-huhs at the end of each sentence. A good time was had by all.
She had to smile when she noticed the corner of his top lip kept twitching. She could imagine him singing along in his head.
She was glad there was someone like Tom in the unit, to lighten the mood.
Echo stared straight ahead. That was the problem inside a Merlin helicopter, there weren’t any good windows to stare out of, just the dull interior.
With the pounding of the rain, and the thrumming of the blades, her mind started to wander.
She was annoyed that her father hadn’t come to see her since her return. He obviously made a fuss about not finding her, and when she returned, he ignored her. Of course, she decided she wouldn’t go and see him first; she didn’t want to give him the pleasure.
God, we’re petty; she mused.
Her mind drifted to all the birthdays he never celebrated with her, because he was too busy. Or the small things that also didn’t matter to him. Of course, if he wasn’t willing to make the time to see her on her birthdays, then she had no chance with things like school plays, where she had the leading role.
Her whole life was one let down after another. She only hoped that when they were stuck underground together he might put aside some time to spend with his only child. Because once those large blast doors were sealed shut, time was all they had.
She wasn’t going to hold her breath.
Echo didn’t realise how long she had been daydreaming for. She was pulled back to the moment at hand when Franco announced over the speakers that they were coming in to land at Cardiff airport.
She felt the lurch in her stomach from when the chopper sunk at speed. For some reason, Franco was landing faster than normal.
Tom pulled the buds from his ears.
“What’s happening?” he shouted.
“No idea,” she shouted back, while trying to keep the little amount of breakfast down that she managed to pick at.
A warning alarm started to ring throughout the hull. It was so loud it momentarily froze Echo with its abruptness and intensity. They were descending too fast.
Echo gripped the harness with all her strength, her body was becoming weightless, lifting from the seat.
The wheels hit the tarmac with a thud, bouncing the helicopter up into the air before it landed down hard again.
Another alarm started to shrill through the air – a flashing red light accompanied this one.
Poe’s head appeared around the cockpits hatch. “Heads up, we have incoming!” he shouted.
12
Echo pulled away the harness, grabbed her weapon, and moved to the small window. Outside was a view of Cardiff airport.
The airport was small, with only one main runway for the larger commercial flights, with another smaller runway bisecting the larger one like the top bar of a cross. The smaller runway was for private, smaller aircraft.
Out the window she could see the terminal building, with its one boarding section that ran out, which had three grounded large Boeings parked at odd angles, as well as a scattering of smaller private Learjet’s to one side.
One plane, a Boeing 787, had its cargo hold open, with the luggage spilling out as if it was a gutted animal. The luggage was ransacked, with it littering the tarmac, as if it had been exploded out of the side. However, Echo could see it had been done by human hands.
To one side was the four families they were there to transport; they were next to an army truck, which had obviously transferred them to the airport, along with four army personnel.
But this wasn’t why Franco had dropped the helicopter at neck breaking speed; it was because of the mob of about fifty people who were over ransacking the Boeing cargo, who had heard and seen the helicopter and were now running towards it.
Shit! Echo thought as she pulled the lever to yank open the sliding hull door.
“Move it people, get on the helicopter,” Echo shouted.
The families were huddled together near the soldiers who had driven them here.
“Now!” she shouted even louder. She jumped to the tarmac and ran the thirty feet to the Adam and Eve finalists.
The sound of the mob echoed across the flat concrete.
Echo grabbed a man who was holding his wife with one arm, while gripping his daughter’s shoulder with another.
“What the hell are you waiting for, get on the bloody helicopter!”
The man was dressed as if he was off to spend the day at the office. They were all dress impeccably.
The man looked at her as if she was some kind of roughian.
“WELL?” Echo screamed.
The man snapped out of it, and started to move towards the helicopter, carrying their luggage while his wife herded their child.
The other three families followed at a brisk march, as if rushing was simply beneath them.
“You best hustle,” Echo shouted at the soldiers. “You don’t wanna be around when they get here,” she stated.
The soldiers didn’t need any encouragement. Now their orders were fulfilled; they had no reason to stick around. They had no idea why they had to collect four families and deliver them to the airport. Maybe, they reasoned; they were important in some way. Either way, they were no longer their problem.
The army truck’s gears crunched as they were forced into place, and with a belch of diesel fumes, the truck headed off in the other direction.
Tom was hoisting the people up into the hull.
Echo was gobsmacked to see them queuing, as if they had all the time in the world.
“Get on the fucking helicopter!” she screamed as she jogged back towards them. The same man she screamed at only seconds before was placing their suitcases into the hull in a line, one at a time as if they all contained the family’s best china tea set and glassware.
Echo reached the open door. She pushed the man over the lip, and grabbed his legs and tossed the rest of his body in. She then grabbed a child and threw her bodily to Tom, who caught her and passed her to a hysterical mother.
The shouting mob was close, and gaining. Here was a way out.
They had descended upon the airport hoping to get on a flight to a country that was unaffected. Even though all flights were grounded, and the possibility of a pilot willing to take anyone was highly implausible, it didn’t stop hundreds of people from storming the runway. Desperate times call for foolhardy, desperate measures.
The helicopter was already lifting from the ground when Echo gripped Toms hand and was hoisted up. She sat upon the metal deck as she looked down at the group of people that were standing where the helicopter was moments before.
One man, who had run with a newborn baby in his arms, held the child up in a pleading gesture, as if to say, please at least take my child!
Even though there was no chance of the helicopter descending back onto the runway, people were still running towards the gathered crowd.
Echo looked down at all the faces staring up at their one hope for survival. The look of utter hopelessness filled them all.
13
Christmas Day
Day 10
Echo lay in bed at 4 AM. She couldn’t get the abandoned peoples faces out of her mind.
After she closed the sliding door, and turned, the man was right in her face, shouting at her for pushing him into the helicopter, and whom did she think she was laying a hand on him?
Tom watched, without interfering, as Echo grabbed the man by his suit lapels and pushed him back onto the seating, forcing him down, while
screaming into his face, that she was the person that had just saved his sorry ass. She then pointed down to where they left the people on the runway, while shouting that those desperate people would give anything to be where he is right now.
The man was shocked that anyone would lay a hand on him and speak to him in such a fashion. He pointed out that he would be making a serious complaint the instant they reached The Ark – he was going to have words with her superior.
Echo lunged forward and put her face a mere inch from his. He jumped back in his seat, forcing himself against the wall as far as his body would allow him. Echo said he was more than welcome to get out anytime he wanted, and she would be more than happy to open the door for him and help him out right now.
The man blanched at the suggestion, with his eyes springing wide open.
And while you’re at it, Echo stated, you can go fuck yourself. She wandered back to her seat while muttering that these people were going to continue the human race, and if that’s the case, we might as well give up now.
Tom sat smirking.
All the Adam and Eve finalists sat still without a word during the remainder of the flight, even while they made the other two stops before heading back to the base.
She wasn’t proud of how she spoke to the man, especially in front of the children, but it made her blood boil at some people’s stupidity; especially when this man was handpicked by the countries leading scientists and biologists to perpetuate the British corner of the world.
Echo stared up at the smooth ceiling.
Christmas Day, she thought.
She had no decorations up. No tree. There was nothing in her small apartment to give any indication that it was Christmas Day. It’s most probably the same everywhere, apart from that lame excuse for a tree in the Mess Hall; she reasoned. There is no reason to celebrate at the moment.
She wondered what next Christmas would be like, once they had all been locked away for a whole year. Would we all pretend everything’s okay and continue as if nothings happened – giving presents, cooking turkeys, hanging decorations?
Echo rolled onto one side and sat up. It was a 5 AM start today. Christmas day or not, things needed to be transported. She only had five hours sleep.
At least there will be plenty of time for rest after, she reasoned. I wonder whether they will let me finish my time off? She gave a chuckle at her own stupid question.
She showered and dressed.
As she walked through the front room, she looked down at the box of photos. She still hadn’t found time to hang the pictures.
As she exited the front door, she kissed her finger and touched it on the photo of her mother.
Today was supplies pickup. She was glad it wasn’t more android-like Adam and Eve jerks.
Stupid name anyway, she reasoned. It made them sound like some freaky cult group.
As she sat chatting with the squad, as Tom talked them through what she did, and what she said to the man, she ate some buttered croissants and sipped her lukewarm coffee on the metal picnic style bench.
After the Captain stated he was supposed to have a word with her about her language and temperament, which made everyone laugh, a soldier approached the table.
“Captain, I have a message for Corporal Philips,” the spotty, skinny soldier said, who looked like they had run out of uniforms his size, and he had to make do with one three sizes too big. He stood to attention.
“Huh?” Echo looked up from her breakfast. “God, I must be in trouble if they’ve sent the heavy squad.”
The young soldier blushed.
“Just kidding around,” Echo said.
“Corporal Philips, General Philips wants to see you in his office ASAP.”
“Ah goddammit, just what I need,” Echo muttered as she dropped her half-eaten croissant onto the plate. “Now you’ve made me lose my appetite.”
14
Echo made her way to the lift, following the scrawny soldier. He was nervous, as if worried she would try to make a run for it.
Every time she rode the lift, she was amazed at the sight of Zone 1. It was an amazing feat of human accomplishment and engineering. And as the glass lift rose up through the dome, past the millions of triphospor lights, it made her feel like she was ascending into the sun itself.
In the lift with them was Doctor Albert Hall. The thin, sickly looking doctor was on his way up for a smoke. Echo saw him around all the time, normally under an old weeping willow, which some claim he planted when he first started here over thirty years ago.
Echo knew the stories because she was related to him; he was her uncle due to marrying her father’s sister, Heather.
The doctor, who stood in faded, old clothes that needed replacing, was reading from a folder.
“Ignoring me huh?”
The doctor was so engrossed he didn’t look up.
“I said,” Echo gave a fake cough, “you must be ignoring me, unc.”
Doctor Hall looked up.
“Echo! Sorry midear, I was miles away. You know how it is?” He gave a tired smile, as he closed the folder and gave his niece a hug.
He stunk of stale cigarette smoke. The smell she remembered from her childhood when he was still married to his aunty.
“I’ve been preparing for this moment for over thirty years, and yet I find I’m still completely unprepared.” He shrugged his shoulders as if to say, what can you do?
“Tell me about it. My heads still spinning.”
The soldier with them in the lift stood quietly.
Doctor Hall gave the soldier a look up and down.
“Is the mute with you?”
“Yeah, the General would like me to grace his company.” She said the word General with a mocking tone.
There was no love between the General and his ex-brother-in-law. The General still blamed Hall for the failed marriage that disgraced his sister. However, Hall was responsible for the science department and was too valuable to replace.
The lift arrived at the main hub building.
“Please let your father know I asked after him,” Doctor Hall stated sarcastically.
“I will unc. Speak soon. We should catch up once the bunker is sealed,” she stated while hugging him.
Doctor Hall gave a weary smile and said they will. He didn’t have the heart to tell her he wouldn’t be safe and secure below ground when the base was sealed. Her father had made it clear years before, in a heated argument, that he would make sure Hall never secured a position inside The Ark.
As it turned out, he was diagnosed with an illness that would make that dream impossible anyway. In a twisted sort of way, it was because of his own body’s failures that he wouldn’t get a space in the bunker he helped create, not because of his bitter ex-brother-in-law.
Echo gave her uncle a smile as he walked off, heading for a cigarette, while she followed the young soldier.
Against all the odds, as she turned the corner she almost walked straight into her aunty Heather.
“Echo!” she squealed. Heather gripped her niece and pulled her in for a hug.
The soldier stood waiting by the wall. He said nothing. However, he was probably concerned that he was taking too long in fulfilling his orders.
“I haven’t seen you since you returned.”
“I know. Sorry, it’s just too busy, you know?” Echo said as she pulled away from her aunt’s bear hug.
“Mind you, we have plenty of time once we are all locked away below ground,” she stated.
Echo noticed how impeccably dressed Heather was, as if she was dashing out to a dinner party.
Then Echo noticed movement down by her feet. Looking down she noticed a small, black and white, shaggy Jack Russell, just sat quietly, studying her with an air of intelligence with her head cocked to one side.
Heather noticed Echo’s attention was fixed on something else.
“Oh, meet Tia. She’s my new doggy. Your father’s idea, so I will have some company.”
Ech
o knew some people had permission to take their personal pets down with them, all adding to the mix. Tia was the first she had actually seen.
“She looks cute.”
“I’m training her,” Heather said with pride in her voice.
Echo knelt down. As soon as she did the little dog went nuts – hopping and jumping all over her, licking and wagging her short tail. Tia then rolled onto her back, exposing her tummy for a good rub. Echo noticed a little silver bone shaped name tag.
“Bless her, she is so sweet. She almost looks like she’s had a perm,” Echo joked.
She stood back up. The little dog sat on her back legs and displayed two paws as if asking for more attention.
“It’s great to see you aunt; we shall catch up soon, but I best not keep father waiting.”
Heather gave her another hug, and then wandered off, with the little dog following at her heals.
“You know; I do know the way; you can carry on with whatever you were doing.” Echo said to the soldier who was once again prepared to lead the way.
“Sorry Corporal Philips, the General stated if I didn’t personally make sure you arrived in his office, he would make sure I got twenty-years worth of scrubbing, in the waste treatment plant in Zone 10, using my toothbrush.”
“Yup, that sounds like something he would say.”
They arrived at the office.
“Hi Alexis,” Margery, the Generals secretary said. She was an ancient old woman, who was stick thin, about four feet tall, and had a head of pure white hair tied up into a bun that looked like it could deflect a bullet. She has been organizing her father’s affairs for as long as Echo could remember, and in all that time, she has always looked ancient. She was also one of the few people to use her given name.
“Hi Margery. You look well.” Echo took a seat.
She will outlive us all; she thought.
The young soldier stood to attention to one side, just to make sure Echo didn’t try to sneak away.
The Sixth Extinction & The First Three Weeks & The Squads First Three Weeks Omnibus [Books 1-10] Page 51