Chapter 1: The Landing

She had been watching the clouds pass by her from the airplane window. As they started their descent the houses and farms began to become visible. She loved seeing the earth as an ant farm, teeny tiny cows and cars seemingly inches apart, when in fact they were miles from each other. The flight attendants were picking up the plastic cups and trash from all of the passengers when the captain came on the loud speaker announcing their arrival city, temperature and local time. Then there was a pause in the transmission, his breath audible in the speakers. He then requested that the flight staff come to cockpit. Bella thought that was strange. She had taken this midday flight from Seattle to Phoenix a dozen times and the captain had never needed anything from the flight staff.

A few minutes later the flight attendants returned and no longer seemed to be interested in collecting Bella's mini pretzel bag. One actually walked right past her outstretched hand and did not even seem to notice he brushed her hand with his forearm. What was all the fuss about? The fasten seatbelt sign flashed and Bella buckled up. The other passengers on the flight had not seemed to notice a shift in the mood of the flight staff, so Bella just assumed she was overreacting.

As the wheels touched down a woman in the third row screamed. At that very moment Bella heard a loud thud on her window. As she turned to look, all she saw in her peripheral vision was a black object hitting the window and falling to the ground. What was that? The woman in the third row began shouting hysterics. Bella couldn't understand what she was saying but it sounded like something about a bird. Bella took her glance from the woman and looked out the window right as a huge crow plowed into her window. That was the black object: two crows hitting the airplane window. But they didn't seem to be flying into the windows, not to mention that the engines were still on and what bird would fly so close to something so loud? No, it was as if the birds were falling right out of the sky.

The flight staff and a few others were trying to calm the woman when the captain came out of the cockpit. The whole plane fell silent. Bella moved her gaze to the captain as she thought, Where is the ground crew? Where are the other planes? Why in the world is the captain coming to talk to us? He usually just sits and waits until all the passengers are off the plane

"Ladies and gentlemen, there seems to be a bit of a situation here in Phoenix. Please remain calm. I am going to need you all to remain in your seats. This may take a while to sort out."

"What may take a while?!" a man shouted from behind Bella.

"Well, it seems that no one is responding via radio here in Phoenix. We lost radio contact about an hour ago with all ground support. Something seems to have happened. So, until we figure out what it is, I am going to have to ask you all to remain in your seats and try to stay calm. We are safe in the plane for now."

Bella thought, "…for now?!"

Captain Robert Patts had gone straight from high school into flight school and became one of the youngest pilots with his airline. He was such a strong pilot that he was one of three pilots that were licensed to fly the new NASA beta ATC jet. ATC stood for Air Tight Cabin. These are planes that are completely self sustaining. This was an early launch of the beta to prepare for the future release of recreational spacecrafts, space ships that the population would ride for entertainment, like a rollercoaster. So, step one in NASA's prototype was a cabin that can survive without oxygen from the outside of the jet. This jet, like a spacecraft had oxygen machines pumping into the cabin as needed, based on population, stress and duration. And so, Captain Patts knew that although it would not last forever, they were safe in the plane, for now.

About halfway through their flight, Robert had intercepted a transmission from Dallas to one of their jetliners: "…REPEAT. DO NOT LAND. AIR IS NOT SAFE. REROUTE TO TOPOLOBAMPO." That was Mexico. It took the rest of the flight for him to figure out what was going on. As he began his decent he expected to see bodies laying on the landing strip. There had to have been some sort of biological attack and they were spared from it, for now. But he had seen no bodies, in fact, no one at all. It was ominously quiet. Then that lady started screaming and he knew he had to go back there and give some sort of, something. Flight school didn't teach him anything about how to handle this.

It went better with the crew. They knew the special aspects of the plane and they trusted "Pattie" as they called him. He told them about the transmission but that they had plenty of fuel and oxygen to reroute as needed. He had to get down and see exactly what he was dealing with before any plan could be hatched. The crew probably assumed Pattie was just "following procedure" for this sort of thing. "I mean, it is a goddamn NASA jet, right? He had to have been given procedure for some sort of situation like this, right?" he heard one of the younger male attendants whisper to another who was visibly shaken. But he hadn't. Biological warfare was still just a fear, just a scary movie. He had no training for this and no idea what to do next. And where were all the people! Landing crew, control room chatter, something! He just continued adjusting buttons and typing in his log as if this landing was no different than every other landing. It was not, and he knew it.

Maybe twenty minutes had passed and the crowd was not calming down. 13 people trapped in an airplane became very small very quickly. Bella knew it was just a matter of time before it got violent. The man that had yelled at the pilot was just getting louder and more flamboyant with every moment that passed. Bella was nervous, very nervous. Then the oxygen masks dropped and the cabin was a flurry of confusion and panic. We are on the ground. Why would we need oxygen? Just let us out. She hadn't even finished forming the words in her mind when she realized, "…for now" had to do with the oxygen. The air outside was bad.

She quickly put her mask on and frantically starred out the window. She felt a bit of relief when she realized that these were not the standard oxygen masks that most airlines carried. These had the ability to be worn without being attached to the craft. These were dual-input masks; they could be attached to the airplane's oxygen or disconnected and worn for up to 8 hours on their own. The angry man lost it when the masks dropped and screamed something to the effect of, "Fuck this, I am out of here" as he headed for the emergency exit. Before Bella could scream the door was open and 3 people dropped like they were hit in the back of the head, and fell to the ground. The man fell out of the open emergency door and landed on the air ramp that flew out automatically. His limp body tumbled and turned as it rolled to the ground. The other two bodies were laying flat on their faces without a twitch. The lady in the 3rd row fainted and the twins in the back sobbed hysterically, but it sounded strange and muffled through their oxygen masks. Their father tried to console them while trying to keep himself under control. The crewman that had been trying to calm the lady in the 3rd row was silent and wide eyed while the other 2 ran to the cockpit. The pilot was at the door with his mask on as well. The cabin fell quiet as the captain said, "Everyone, just calm down! Keep your masks on and remain calm." Behind him the two woman attendants huddled together sobbing.

The group was starring expectantly at the captain, silent. Suddenly one of woman attendants completely lost it, too. She screamed, "ITS NOT SAFE. WE AREN'T SAFE. WE ARE FUCKED!" and she took off down the aisle. The pilot yelled something at her but she ignored him, or didn't hear him because at that moment she jumped out the emergency exit and ran. She didn't look back or stop. She just ran until she was gone.

Bella watched her through the window until she couldn't see her anymore. Then she turned to the captain, but something caught her eye on the floor. It was the attendant's oxygen mask. She left it! She ran out into the air without a mask and didn't die. What the hell is going on? It didn't make any sense. Seconds after the air had come into the cabin 3 people dropped dead, but this woman runs headlong into that same air and ran with seemingly no effect. Bella realized she wasn't the only one confused. The captain had the same look on his face. He knew something and it was just disproved by his crew. The man with twins tapped Bella on the shoulder and whispered, "We need to get out of here. Is your car parked here?" She nodded in shock. She walked through the aisle toward the air ramp and then all four of them slid down the emergency air ramp and ran for the parking garage. Where was the man that fell? He must have tumbled under the air ramp. Bella knew they were safe, for now, but what made the air safe again? Why are they okay? What the hell is going on?!

He didn't know this woman and he didn't care. He had two children he had to get home to their mother. All he could think about was his sister saying, "It will be a fun trip, Emmett. The kids will love it!" They all scrambled into the woman's car, shut the doors, closed the vents and sat still. The woman turned to him and said, "We need to get some oxygen."

"What the fuck is going on here?"

"I have no idea but the air is okay now, but it wasn't before. We need to get some safe oxygen."

Emmett just nodded in agreement and the woman drove off. He looked in the back seat and the boys were silent but red eyed. He gave them both a grin and said, "Want a snack, guys?" They both mustered a nod and Emmett reached into his backpack and pulled out two containers of goldfish. The boys were nervous but calming down slowly. "Uncle Emmett? Who is that lady?"

"My name is Bella," the woman said distractedly. She looked a bit surprised. Emmett was used to that though; many people assumed he was the boys' father.

"Emmett," he said with an overdramatic wave. "And this," pointing in the backseat, "is Liam and Zane. Say hi to Bella, boys."

"Hi," the boys said with goldfish in their mouths.

"They are my nephews. My sister, Alice, lives in Forks and she wanted me to take the boys for the week. I decided it would be fun to take a day long airplane trip. So we hoped on the first plane out and here we are. How am I supposed to get back there? What is going on? Do you think this is just in Phoenix? Oh, God! What if this is happening everywhere?! Oh, fuck me…" Emmett trailed off into his horrific thoughts.

"Here we are," the woman muttered, seemingly unaware that Emmett was even talking. She pulled into what looked to Emmett to be a Wal-Mart parking lot; a ton of cars with a huge building in front of them. She zoomed around and went to the back of the building. She whipped into a downward ramp that led to a garage underneath the building. She pressed a button on a black box clipped to her sun visor and the garage door opened in front of them. She pulled into the garage and the door shut automatically behind them.

"Where are we, Uncle Emmett?" one of the twins whispered in amazement.

"Good question, kiddo. Bella?"

Suddenly the garage got very noisy. It sounded like they were in the middle of a tornado and then it stopped. Bella reached to open the car door and Emmett grabbed her arm, "No, what if the air is bad again?!"

Bella could feel Emmett's fierce grip and realized how scared he really was for her to open the door. "It's okay. This is where I work. This air is good air." She reached into the glove box and pulled out her ID badge. He read it out loud: "Bella Swan. Laboratory Specialist. IRQCI?"

"'International Research Quality Consulting, Inc'. I make sure labs are safe. This one is."

"So you experiment on rats and stuff?"

She smiled. That was the opposite of what she did. IRQCI was a private consulting company for businesses all over the world. Her department dealt with the safety of laboratories, not the experiments but of the building itself. This was their laboratory "show room" as they called it. IRQCI developed the most state-of-the-art laboratory facility to showcase what their consulting can do. The show room not only had complete digital surveillance, it also had the most sterile environment that can be created: complete sterility.

As she explained all of this to Emmett, they were passing through multiple extended doorways, each one sterilizing them in a different way. The boys thought it was hilarious because each time they walked through them a soft electronic female voice would say: "Proceed." Liam began repeating it with the voice. "Proceed. Proceed," and cackling each time she said it. Zane just walked cautiously. Eventually they ended up in the control room. All that was there was a computer, a desk and a chair.

"Now what?" Emmett asked her.

"Now we figure out what the hell is going on."

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