ARIA

by Geoff Nelder

  Dan wagged a finger. “You are all assuming it is a choice between using the escape pod or the Marimar.”

  “Oh yes,” said Abdul, “there’s the homemade-rocket option.”

  “No,” Dan said, “I meant not throwing anything at the fudge ball. It would take up too much precious time; it might aggravate the situation, and if it is related to the aliens, it might be a decoy. The real alien mother ship might be round the dark side of the moon. Then there is the other strategic argument.”

  “Oh, I know it,” Jena said. “You still think ARIA was meant to be for the benefit of mankind. You must be a demented—”

  “There is a possibility,” interrupted Antonio, “that the second case might immunise uninfected people like us.”

  “It doesn’t matter what we all think, does it?” She looked at the others who gave her no encouraging return nods. No matter how logical she might think her points were, none of the others would entertain going against the gang leader.

  Friday 18 September 2015, 0230 GMT:

  The A55, North Wales, 22.5 weeks since ARIA; twenty-two years, six months memory loss for most people.

  THE TAIL LIGHTS OF BRIAN’S VOLVO ESTATE GLOWED at Ryder like a monster’s red eyes. The black, overcast sky and lack of streetlights freaked them all out, yet the obfuscation comforted them.

  “At least we’d see other vehicles for miles,” Gustav said, sitting next to Ryder in the field centre’s minibus. He’d driven at a steady fifty miles per hour since getting onto the dual carriageway twenty minutes before. Ryder had seen no other vehicles; just a few oil-lamps and candles flickering behind windows. They’d agreed to use sidelights in case their headlights alerted the curious. In the gloom they’d had a couple of scares when they came across abandoned vehicles. If that wasn’t bad enough, Ryder knew they were driving into a busier region and certain to be scared again.

  Brian and Laurette drove as agreed, a hundred metres ahead. Without warning, the red eyes intensified as Brian braked again, making Ryder brake too.

  “Now what?” Gustav said. “He’s more nervous than the rabbits and sheep we’ve scared off the road.”

  “Instead of whinging,” Ryder said, “get them on the mobile.”

  “Hello, Laurette, speak to us.”

  “Brian thought someone ran across the road in front.”

  “But you can’t see him now?”

  “No, but about a hundred and fifty metres ahead there is a lorry and some of its load in the road.”

  Ryder took the mobile phone. “Turn your sidelights off. Good. Now is the road blocked? Use your night-sight binoculars.”

  “Just a few packing-case-sized boxes, scattered mostly near the lorry.”

  “Remember what we said? A few large items can be driven around but one telegraph pole on its side would stop us.”

  Laurette came on. “I’m using the binoculars, Ryder. There is a clear way through. A zigzag to avoid boxes dead ahead. There is nothing going right across the lanes. But...I might have seen torchlight to the left where Brian saw someone run to.”

  Brian said, “We should withdraw. There’s an exit to Colwyn Bay about two miles behind you, Ryder.”

  “I’m not sure it isn’t just one person,” Laurette said. “They might live in one of the cottages near the road and saw our lights from way back. In this dark, even our side lights would be visible.”

  “Too risky,” Gustav said. “There might be a mob of them waiting to throw obstacles just in front and behind them. That is our Laurette in that car, Ryder. You have a duty—”

  “Right, Brian, this is what you are going to do. With your lights still off, drive fifty metres forward slowly. Then be guided by Laurette’s navigation. Don’t think for yourself, Brian. That’s not an insult, it’s survival rally driving. So when Laurette shouts right, do it immediately.”

  “We should have bloody practised this,” snarled Brian.

  “Agreed, but we ran out of last minutes. One more thing, Brian.”

  “What?”

  “At the point of turning right, put your lights on full beam. Scare the living daylights out of them.”

  “And I suppose you’ll be sitting comfortably way back there to see if we get marmalised.”

  “I have a rescue plan too. Whatever happens, keep going, and fast. But, Brian.”

  “We’re listening.”

  “Turn your headlights off once you’re past them and then keep going at fifty if you see us behind you.”

  “And what if you don’t follow us?” Brian sounded suspicious.

  “That’s why we have mobile phones. Any time you’re ready.”

  “Fuck off,” Brian said and accelerated.

  In the pitch blackness, Ryder couldn’t see Brian’s car move off or the road ahead. Nothing outside his windscreen. An eerie green glow from the dashboard illuminated his whitening knuckles. He released his left hand to press a button. Gustav’s side window buzzed as it slid down.

  “Get the shotgun ready for a shot up in the sky, Gustav. But only when I shout ‘shoot.’ Got it?”

  “Laurette’s giving instructions. Listen.”

  “Lights now, dammit!” Laurette shouted to Brian.

  Bright white light illuminated the road ahead, with Brian’s car looking like an eclipse of the sun in the middle.

  Laurette screamed, “Right! Turn right now!”

  Their headlights swept right, illuminating the boxes and sent elongated shadows across the road.

  “I can’t see any men,” said Gustav.

  “Quiet,” Ryder hushed, concentrating hard.

  Laurette’s voice again on the mobile: “Sharp left now.”

  Their headlights swept left, this time showing two men with pickaxe handles running at the car.

  Ryder drove forward, accelerating as Laurette shouted. “They’ve thrown something in the road. Can’t see what. Not poles; ball bearings! Have to slow down!”

  Ryder shouted at the phone, “Don’t stop. We’re coming too.”

  Just as he saw their brake lights come on and the two men reach their car, Ryder put his headlights on full beam. “Shoot!”

  Gustav’s shotgun went off. The shot hit one of the boxes making it fly. The men ran off to the left.

  “My God,” Laurette whooped. “That’s brilliant. Oops, the car’s like on an ice rink but we’re going forward. Oh, it’s okay now. We’ll carry on as planned.”

  Ryder drove straight ahead now the box blocking the way had been shot and showed evidence of being empty. They slowed to pass over and through the ball bearings while Gustav played shotgun guard out of the passenger window.

  They heard Laurette remind Brian to switch to side lights as they reached fifty once more.

  “Gustav,” Ryder said. “You know when I said fire the gun in the air?”

  “Yes, it worked really well, didn’t it?”

  “No, Gustav. I said in the air. You fired horizontally, at the men.”

  “There was air on the way. I am German, from Leipzig. My English is not so good...”

  “Bollocks. Gustav, you and Laurette aren’t an item, are you?”

  “Why shouldn’t we be?”

  “She playing hard to get, then? But maybe not after you rescued her with a shot in the dark?”

  “Not much gets past you, eh, Ryder?”

  “Plenty, but, Gustav, next time you do exactly as I say or you’re walking home. Got it?”

  HALF AN HOUR LATER, the two vehicles drew up where a public road ran along a perimeter fence of the airfield. Owned by an aircraft manufacturer, it was extended for Airbus test flights, so it had the length required for Marimar. Gustav and Brian made short work of snipping a large hole in the perimeter fence. Laurette sat on top of the minibus as lookout while Ryder talked to Dan on the Marimar.

  “We are lighting two fires at the end of the runway and positioning our cars on either side of the start of it with our headlights shining down its length. That’s about all we have time for, I’m afra
id, Dan. Which way are you coming in? The wind is from the west at about ten knots.”

  “That’s okay, Ryder. We have the details of the airfield in our database, and I repeat, we are coming in from the east to land into the wind. One extra thing you can do is to make sure the mobile phone you are using is on and in the centre of the start of the runway. In the absence of instrumental automated landing aids, we can use your phone as a homing device. Luckily, the GPS satellites are still functioning.”

  “Right, Dan. ETA eighteen minutes. See you on the ground.”

  They needed all eighteen minutes to get the fires lit and the cars positioned before they heard then saw the nav lights on the Marimar as it appeared beneath the cloud base in the east.

  Ryder often travelled for hours to see a returning space flight, but now he worried. Just suppose any of the usual four million people who lived within twenty miles looked and listened. What would they think? He hoped their memory loss would mean they would wake confused but think nothing was too unusual about an experimental plane landing at Hawarden airfield. Only later in the day, after they were properly awake, would they realize their memories were haywire; maybe then they would have come to investigate the approach of a spaceship.

  In spite of an increased heart rate and perspiration, Ryder was awed by the sight of the Marimar. Built more like an executive jet than the old, stubby-styled shuttle, it came in much faster than most jet planes. Ryder appreciated the wisdom of the pilot not putting all his lights on as he would have in normal circumstances. Of course, with no other metal birds in the sky, there was no need for alert lights.

  A few seconds out, the Marimar put its full landing lights on and made a scary, fast-but-perfect landing. The two vehicles chased it and Ryder cursed not having one of his team get a mobile stair ready. To his surprise he saw Gustav driving one up to the Marimar’s hatch. Then he was even more surprised to see Laurette drive a baggage belt to the spacecraft.

  IN THE REMAINING DARK AT FOUR A.M. but with a hint of a lightening eastern sky, Ryder greeted the astronauts and tried to hurry them into the minibus. He’d forgotten about the case until he saw two of the crewmen carefully catch it off the rollers. For a few moments, he stood transfixed. Not that they could see the actual case but just to know that the padded, heavy bag contained either their salvation or termination tightened his stomach.

  Gustav had already prepared the rear of the Volvo estate car with so much polystyrene, they had to leave white piles of it on the tarmac.

  “Hold your horses, Ryder,” said Dan. “I want the Marimar refuelled and hidden before we leave.”

  “Dan, even assuming we can find the right fuel, by the time we empty a hangar, it’ll be daylight and we could be overrun with local gangs. Let’s go now.”

  “Give us twenty minutes,” Dan said. Ryder had become used to giving orders and being hard on people who disagreed, but he had no choice. For any normal flying around, the Marimar would make do with ordinary aviation fuel and they found a tanker with enough for a 75-per cent fill. The first three hangars they came across had been trashed by looters. Ryder couldn’t work out the logic as he thought most people would be starving, not looking for aviation parts. Having decided to leave the Marimar under a net they’d found, Brian had an idea.

  “Clear enough space in the emptiest of the hangars. Back the plane in and put some more trashed boxes and rubbish back.”

  “Excellent,” Vlad said, “confused people with poor memories will ignore it.”

  By the time their two-vehicle convoy started back, the dawn raced them down the A55.

  Coffee and sandwiches made from homemade bread and honey occupied the astronauts, and Ryder talked on the mobile again to Brian.

  “I agree with you. It’s too risky to stay on the A55 in the Colwyn Bay area just in case those men are able to remember or work something out. How about the coast road?”

  “No. We need to head inland for a while.”

  AT RYDER’S REQUEST, the ISS crew brought their pressure suits and helmets. They’d changed into more comfortable NASA working clothes: pale blue, all-in-one baby-grows, as Laurette described them.

  Gustav insisted on having a go at being a bus driver on the return journey so Ryder rode shotgun and phone.

  Encountering those men in the road made Ryder ask Brian for an alternative route. “Route details?”

  “I was thinking of taking us to Betws-y-Coed then round the back of Anafon. Apart from Betws itself, we hardly touch a village. There are loads of minor roads that go over the back mountains but not right over the moorland to the centre. Of course, if you want to walk the last couple of miles...”

  “We’ll take a chance on Betws then. Should get there by 5.30; early for even the hardiest.”

  They needn’t have worried, although they did startle a few dawn dog walkers and had to inch through a herd of escaped sheep.

  All the astronauts had to be awakened when they arrived at the field centre, and Ryder collapsed in his bed, the adrenaline no longer needed; the relief sedated him to deep sleep.

  PEACE DIDN’T LAST LONG. It wasn’t the shouting that brought his game-show-host dream to an end, but Teresa shaking him with such violence, he bit his tongue.

  “Wake up, you dozy ha’peth. All hell is breaking out!”

  The stress and responsibility had worn him out. He struggled to swing his legs over the bed then staggered to the refectory, but the hullabaloo rattled the windows from the outside. Ryder stood in the doorway looking out.

  “We’ve been months in space, circling this planet and you are saying we can’t go for a walk?” shouted Adbul at Brian and Derek, who each held a rifle at the astronauts.

  Vlad took his turn at bellowing. “Have you people any idea at all what it’s like cooped up in a tin box for so long?”

  “Why don’t you shout a bit louder, boys,” Bronwyn said. “Did you shout at each other up on the space station?”

  “’Course not,” said Vlad, to a Yeah, right from Jena.

  “Listen, if you did yell at each other in your tin can, no one would have heard you, would they?” Bronwyn continued, like a nagging schoolteacher. “Whereas out here.” She waved her arms at the hills. “Just beyond those echoing hills are millions of people who all have perfectly functioning ears as well as ARIA.”

  Her admonishment brought silence.

  Dan, Jena, and Antonio leaned back on the minibus, each with a steaming mug and saying nothing. Ryder couldn’t tell by looking in their eyes whether they were laughing, annoyed, or indifferent. He’d told Bronwyn that the ISS crew were the most intelligent set of people left who still had all their marbles. He knew it would have given her great pleasure to give them a dressing down.

  “Ryder, tell them,” Brian said.

  Ryder waved at the hillsides. “Dan, this valley might look very spacious to you, but we need to have a chat, lay down some ground rules and—”

  “I don’t like the sound of rules,” Jena said. “We’ve had to live by checklists and NASA protocols for ever. I’m kinda looking forward to a taste of freedom.”

  “I’m sure you’d rather we all follow a few basic precautions than catch ARIA. It’s as easy as meeting a stranger on that hilltop. And then we’d all have it. The end.”

  “Yeah, come on guys,” Dan said, “let’s get to business and decide what we’re doing with that case.”

  Friday 18 September 2015:

  Moraine Lake, Rocky Mountains, five months since Manuel (55) caught ARIA, twenty-two years of his memory gone.

  THE MORNING SUN HIT MANUEL’S NIGHTMARE-TORTURED FACE. His hangover beat him up. His ears tried to shut out the irritating tapping noise from someone who was going to get shouted at when he raised enough energy. Eyelids stuck down with sleep struggled to obey opening instructions. His right arm stretched out under the sheet and found warm flesh that wasn’t his.

  More asleep than awake, he turned to the woman. “Anne, shall I make some coffee?” Then one eyelid inched open,
like a portcullis. Confused thoughts about getting divorced from Anne ravaged his brain when he remembered her with blond hair and not the redhead turning in bed to face him. He moved a leg to find the floor as her green eyes found him.

  Her scream drowned out the tapping. As he turned from the howling, Manuel caught the blue flash of wings as the woodpecker flew away. The cabin vibrated: every animal in the forest was on the run. Forest? Why was he in a forest cabin? As the screaming from the naked woman (not Anne), continued, he thought about trying to calm her down, but he didn’t know how. He assumed they’d had sex by the fact he, too, wore no clothes. Nothing he could think of saying could mitigate the situation, so he found some trousers and wandered off to seek a bathroom.

  An old man with almost no hair stared at him from the mirror. It wasn’t him. He touched his stubble and his shiny head. He must be in a dream. A note taped to the mirror said, “Kitchen table. The NoteCom. Press Go.”

  The kitchen in this familiar yet unknown cabin was too neat. The table was bare. What the hell was a NoteCom anyway? A pad could be a notepad, like the ones he used as a journalist. Of course, back in his office, he used a computer to word process his pieces, like all modernised hacks in 1993. Good, the shrieking had whimpered off. He filled an electric kettle and switched it on, noting a dial on the wall indicating 60% solar charge. Something else he hadn’t remembered seeing anywhere. The packaging of foods in the cupboard looked different with their plastic-like containers carrying labels embossed rather than stuck on their child-proof sealed lids; the cooker hob had touch-sensitive panels rather than knobs.

  A well-thumbed Rocky Mountain What’s On magazine lay on the fridge. Manuel shook his head at the March 2015 date. “Somebody’s having a joke,” he said to himself, and then the bedroom door burst open.

  They looked at each other in silence, trying to figure out the who and what had happened, racking their tortured memory for unavailable clues. Finally, Manuel pointed at the bathroom door.