SIX of THIRTY-TWO
*NOTE – Hello everybody, it's me, TheManFromMudos, and I'm back again today with another chapter of 'Xavier', which, as you may be shocked to find, is actually on schedule this time! That's right, for the first time since beginning this story, I have successfully managed to finish a chapter two days after writing the previous one. Who knows, maybe I'll even get the next one done within two days. Then again, it's becoming harder and harder for me to write these chapters in a single sitting these days, especially since the average length of each one has almost doubled since 'Xena'. Thankfully, I'm still managing to get by at the moment, so here's another one for you! Don't hesitate to let me know what you think of this chapter and the story so far, and I'll be back again for the next one. Until then, sit back, relax, read on and enjoy. It's 'Xavier'. THANK YOU!*
A couple of minutes later, I'd managed to get the hang of driving the van, and we had taken it around to the other side of the hangar. The increased gravity here meant that handling was difficult, with the steering wheel apparently having little jurisdiction over the vehicle itself, but I managed to keep it under control. As we slowly backed up against the airlock steps of the Andromeda, I quickly pulled up the handbrake, and the van came to a stand still.
"I'll get everyone in." I told Katie, pushing open the driver's side door and stepping out once again onto the weathered tarmac. I walked around to the back of the van slowly, and unsuccessfully attempted to pull open the doors. Of course, they had locked themselves again after being shut.
"Katie?" I called, poking my head around the passenger's side of the van. "I need you to open the doors from the inside."
"Are you having a laugh?" She replied, annoyed by the fact that she would have to climb over the seats a second time.
"Fucking van." I heard her chunter as she clambered into the back. "Could've taken a brand-new sports car, but no, it's 'too conspicuous', isn't it?" Finally, the doors flung open, revealing a less than satisfied Katie on her hands and knees inside. She glared at me coldly as I tried to resist the urge to laugh, and climbed out onto the airfield with an irritated look on her face.
"Not one word." She muttered as she swept the dust from her knees. I simply continued to smirk, which frankly did not impress her.
"Anyway," I said, already making my way up the steps to the airlock. "Let's get to it, shall we? You'd better grab the kids and take them into the front."
"Don't you think that's a bit dangerous?" She asked, becoming concerned for the children's safety. She was right, of course. But what choice did we have?
"Oh, you think they'd be safer in the back, do you?" I remarked sarcastically, turning around midway up the steps.
"I suppose not." She muttered with a sigh. Then, she followed me up the steps, looking down at her feet to avoid stumbling.
"Look, I know it's not ideal." I assured her as we continued up towards the airlock. "But we've got to make the best of a difficult situation, haven't we?" She didn't reply to this, but nodded her head with an apologetic smile. I shared her sentiment, really I did. But let's be honest, we couldn't afford to waste any more time looking for a more appropriate vehicle, could we? Otherwise, we'd be in even more danger. We'd be stuck here on Sedna.
"Okay, Xena." I called out as I pulled open the airlock door with a groan. "We've got a car. Sort of. Alright, it's a van, but what can you do, eh?" When I heard no reply of any kind from her, I stepped into the airlock chamber cautiously. I looked around, and found her sat on the floor, both children sound asleep in her arms. Judging by her lack of responsiveness when I spoke, I assumed that she too, had fallen asleep.
"Zee?" I said softly, rocking her shoulder gently. Her head bolted up with a start as she awoke, and she appeared to 'look' around in confusion.
"It's alright, Xena, you've just got hypersleep fatigue." I explained, taking one of the babies, namely Amanda, from her carefully. As I turned around and passed the child to Katie, she got to her feet with a yawn, or at least, a close approximation of one, and handed me Xavier.
"Right." I announced, stepping towards the airlock door once again. "Let's get everyone into the van, and we can be off." Katie nodded, and stepped out before me, making her way down the steps with extra caution this time. I followed, executing the same level of care with Xavier in my arms. When I was halfway down the steps, I looked back, and saw that Xena was still stood in the doorway of the airlock.
"Are you coming, Xena?" I asked, seeing that she was reluctant to leave the airlock. She simply gazed blankly at me with an affrighted expression.
"Katie, can you take Xavier for me?" I asked, hurrying my way down the rest of the steps and thrusting the baby into her arms before she could respond. Then, I turned around, and rushed back up to the top, where Xena still cowered in the airlock.
"What's wrong, Zee?" I asked quietly, although I already had some idea of what was bothering her. I took her hand as she continued to peer through the doorway anxiously, and attempted to lead her out onto the steps, but she quickly took her hand back, shaking her head adamantly.
"Hey, it's alright." I said warmly, placing a hand on her shoulder and stroking her arm gently. "There's nothing to be afraid of." Although clearly reluctant to do so, she finally brought herself to step out into the open. She gazed around in both fear and awe of the world around her.
"There you are, you see? Perfectly safe." I assured her, slowly leading her down the steps towards the van. "You're outdoors, Xena. Daunting, isn't it?" She nodded quickly in agreement, still somewhat apprehensive of this new and mysterious environment. I felt quite proud of her, though. For the first time ever, Xena was outside, and whilst she was still quite afraid, I was confident that she would soon kick her agoraphobia.
"Come on, then." I continued, carrying on down the steps towards the van. Xena followed nervously, stumbling a couple of times on the narrow steps. Once she reached the bottom, I gestured to the open doors on the back of the van. She looked at me blankly with a disapproving expression.
"What?" I said naïvely, shrugging my shoulders. "It's all we could find." She shook her head with a sigh, but climbed in to the vehicle regardless.
"At least nobody'll see you back here, eh?" I told her in an attempt to lighten the mood. She was definitely less than impressed by this remark. Nevertheless, she seemed to accept my logic. As I slammed the doors shut behind her, I heard her growl quietly, as if muttering under her breath. I'd had my fair share of this from Katie already, so I was pretty unphased. As I walked back around to the driver's side door of the van, I heard Katie chattering quietly, and Xena continued to make various growling and hissing noises. I could only conclude that they were having some kind of conversation about me, namely regarding my poor choice of transportation. It was at this point that I realised that I wasn't sure whether I'd be able to cope with having two women in my life from now on. Was this how it was going to be? Them chatting about me behind my back? I dreaded to think.
"Something the matter, ladies?" I asked, glaring at both Katie and Xena sincerely as I got into the van and shut the door behind me.
"Not at all, Matthew." Katie replied. "We're quite alright. Aren't we, Zee?" Xena simply nodded her head in agreement.
"If you say so." I muttered, pulling my seatbelt down over my shoulder. I fumbled around with it for a moment or two, until it finally clicked into place.
"Alright, everybody." I announced, wrapping my hand around the handbrake and releasing it carefully. "Here we go!" The van slowly began to roll forwards as I pressed my foot down onto the accelerator, and we finally pulled away from the Andromeda. Now, we were well and truly on the road. I turned the wheel with great effort, and started my way down towards the bottom of the airfield. The van bumped and jostled around on the rough ground, so much so that I was literally lifted out of my seat a couple of times, but I tried not to notice it. Right now, I was concentrating on the bigger picture. In just a few short days, we could be aboard the Roaming Colony Ship Angelica, ready to start our new lives. And yes, it was a long shot, and overly ambitious, and things probably wouldn't go this idealistic way that I thought they would in my mind, but I didn't care. We had a chance. We had hope.
"What's going to happen to Andi, then?" Katie asked, peering back through the window towards the Andromeda.
"I don't know." I said, shrugging my shoulders. "She'll probably stay here for a few months before anybody realises she's been abandoned. Eventually, the ship'll get taken away by the local authorities. With any luck, it'll get returned to Callisto, to the Indo-Japanese colonies, and then put back into public service."
"She'll be fine, then?" Katie continued, apparently quite concerned for Andi's wellbeing, which I found particularly unusual.
"She's just a computer, you know, Katie." I said bluntly. No sooner than I'd finished my sentence, though, I realised just how closed-minded it made me sound.
"You really believe that, do you?" She remarked, shaking her head in disapproval. "I would've thought that you of all people would understand that anything which is intelligent enough to achieve sentience should be treated as an equal." She gestured over her shoulder to Xena, just to make sure I took her meaning.
"I suppose you're right." I said with a sigh, whilst giving Xena an apologetic glance. "Look, she'll be fine. She's a big girl, she can look after herself."
"I hope you're right." Katie replied, looking back at the Andromeda one last time. "Even though we didn't know her for long… I think I'll miss her."
"Me too." I agreed. "But, bigger things await us now, don't they?" Katie nodded, as did Xena. 'And hopefully', I thought to myself as we pulled out onto a small road at the end of the airfield, 'it won't take us too long to get there'. I'd soon discover, however, just how wrong I was about that.
Around two and a half hours or so later, we were deep within the city of Manchester, but by this point, the mood in the van was anything but cheery. From the very moment we'd left the West Manchester Shuttleport, I'd had absolutely no idea where we were going. There were signs everywhere, of course, but the city was a maze of one way streets and roundabouts. All of this was proving very stressful for me, as the last time I'd driven a car in a big city was… Sheffield, England in twenty-three ten. The van, meanwhile, continued to groan and strain, the petrol gauge verging on 'empty'.
"We're lost, aren't we?" Katie asked as I turned down a narrow alleyway. Surprise, surprise, it was another dead end.
"Of course we're not lost." I lied, carefully reversing back out onto the road. "There are signs everywhere; I know exactly where we are."
"So do I." She remarked, rocking the children, who were both crying loudly, as she spoke. "I know we're exactly nowhere near where we should be."
"I don't know why you're getting snappy with me." I told her, trying to keep my cool. "You don't know this city any more than I do."
"Oh, dear…" She mumbled under her breath, looking out of the window to avoid eye contact. We're going to miss our flight…"
"We're not going to miss our flight!" I snapped. "And I keep telling you, it's not a flight. 'Flight' implies that it's traveling somewhere."
"Does it fly? Yes. Is it therefore a flight? Yes!" She said cockily, quickly becoming irritated by the situation.
"Look, stop being pedantic." I said calmly, taking a deep breath as I pulled up at a set of traffic lights. "You're not helping the situation."
"Oh, I'm being pedantic, am I?" She laughed mockingly. "But 'Flight' implies that it's traveling somewhere, doesn't it, Matthew?"
"Don't make me turn this van around!" I said, almost shouting. Honestly, this was hands-down one of the most stressful experiences of my entire life.
"Oh my God, Matthew, look." Katie suddenly blurted out, staring off into the distance through the windscreen.
"Don't try to change the subject!" I said angrily. She wasn't going to wriggle out of this argument that easily.
"No seriously, look!" She repeated, nodding her head towards some point off in the distance. I turned to see what it was she had spotted. My mouth immediately fell agape as I saw it. I don't know how I'd even managed to miss it. But sure enough, peaking out from behind a cluster of skyscrapers on our right, was a ship. An enormous ship. It towered literally miles into the air, and was so long that the ends were not visible from our current viewpoint.
"Jesus…" I whispered, completely awestruck by the truly immense vehicle. It was incomprehensibly huge, seventy or eighty miles in length.
"Is that it?" Katie asked, also taken aback by the sight before her. "Is that the Angelica?" I simply nodded my head. It was at this point that I realised I wasn't concentrating at all on the road, so I quickly returned my focus to driving, just in time to swerve around a cyclist directly in front of us.
"So that's where we're going?" Katie asked, still recovering from the initial shock of seeing the gargantuan Angelica.
"It certainly is." I announced, slowly bringing the van to a halt at yet another set of traffic lights. "And look at that." I pointed to the road directly ahead of the lights, which transformed into a large motorway flyover. Over the road hung a large sign, which bore a rightward facing arrow, as well as the words 'Greater Manchester Ship Port – 12'. At last, we were heading in the right direction. And more to the point, we were only twelve miles away from it. It wouldn't take us more than half an hour to get there now. By the end of the day, we could be on that ship. That vast, ominous vessel, the size of a small country inside. As the lights turned green, I pulled away from the junction quickly, driving straight ahead into the rightward lane of the motorway flyover, and we began our final stretch of the journey. The journey to our new home, our new lives. The journey to Angelica.