Chapter 5
As soon as Leda stepped out of the air-conditioned airport onto the tarmac runway, the only thing she could think was:
Fuck it'shot.
She was British. The ability to complain about anything was hardwired into her DNA. And that meant that a large portion of the year was spent moaning about the weather. It was too hot, too cold, too wet, too windy. And so on until she was ninety and ready to die or so the legend goes.
The point was, Leda was used to complaining about the weather. What she wasn't used to was humidity that made it feel like she was walking through soup, and a temperature so high her hair curled almost upon contact with it. The temperature and air density was so extreme that any complaints Leda might have had quickly dried up along with all the water in her body.
She was definitely wearing too many layers.
"Shit." She muttered, awkwardly jimmying her backpack off so that she could practically rip her shirt off. Luckily, she'd had enough sense to wear a tank top underneath, but the instant relief of her bothered skin not touching the itchy material of her cheap shirt was so instantaneous that she paused for a moment, just revelling in the fact that she was free.
"Coming, Newbs?"
Julian bumped her shoulder as he passed, grinning. Leda nodded sluggishly and wondered whether it was a good thing he had shortened her nickname. She stuffed her shirt in her bag and waddled after, each step adding a new sheen of sweat on her forehead.
Astrid Babineaux and Sarah Carmichael were waiting on the tarmac next to a small private plane. It loomed ominously behind the two women, white and sleek. Had the plane her dad had tried to steal looked like it?
Leda had never been on, nor seen a private jet in real life before. However, their very existence had, fourteen years before, changed the course of her entire life. Her dad was in a psych ward in part because he had been apprehended trying to steal one, and now, fourteen years later here she was completing the trip he had never made. The parallels between herself and her father weren't lost to her.
Dr Morgan strolled to a stop and Leda took a deep breath in and out. Now was not the time to get freaked out by a plane, of all things. The weight of the air sat heavily on her shoulders and she sagged under it, wilting in the heat. Couldn't they do their introductions inside the thing that could keep them cool?
Dr Morgan turned and smiled at her, and she sighed. Clearly not.
"Ms Babineaux." Dr Morgan greeted The Aether Group Representative with a welcoming smile and held out his hand for her to shake.
The heir to the French secret society was easily the tallest out of all of them and when she shook Dr Morgan's hand, she dwarfed his grip. A heavy mane of bushy dark hair framed a long, stern face and blue eyes peaked from under heavy brows. All in all, she was probably the closest Leda would ever get to ever meeting an actual Amazonian. Astrid's unusual visage left Leda feeling a horrible combination of being terrified and a little infatuated. She seemed completely at ease with the heat and was even wearing a long tan jacket over cream slacks and a brown linen top with absolutely no creases. Leda frowned, who didn't crease their linen? It was like four in the afternoon. Usually just looking at a piece of linen clothing was enough to make it crumple.
"You've met Julian and Howard before, in Timbuktu." Dr Morgan said, gesturing towards Leda. Astrid's heavy gaze slid towards her and Leda stupidly hoped the put together woman couldn't see how much she was sweating. "But this is-"
"Leda Ackerman. Formally Leda Gauling." Astrid interrupted in accented English. Leda smiled and held out her hand for Astrid to shake, a gesture that she pointedly ignored. Leda let her hand drop awkwardly back to her side and tried not to take offence. Maybe the French didn't shake hands. There was probably some weird French proverb about frog legs and shaking hands she didn't know about. Or something.
Astrid inclined her head by way of hello but did not smile.
"You are Robert's daughter." Robert? Leda thought in surprise. Since when was the French Amazonian on a first name basis with her dad? "The resemblance is remarkable. It is a pleasure."
Leda hummed, hand itching at her side. "Yeah. Nice to meet you, too."
There was something wrong with the way Astrid said her dad's name. Like she knew him or something. But how could she? Her dad had been locked away for nearly fifteen years. Astrid only looked about five years older than her. It didn't make any sense. Then again, neither did her dad's theory to anyone with any sense of logic and yet here she was, about to get on a private jet to a mysterious island that probably didn't exist. Plus, Astrid was part of an ancient secret society dedicated to tearing the rule book on possible physics apart that had access to hundreds of years of accumulated wealth. She probably had about fifteen private detectives at her disposal at any time. Forget knowing her dad's first name, she probably knew what Leda last ate and what kind of toilet paper she bought.
The concept was a little unsettling, but she was only given a moment to dwell on it before Dr Morgan continued to plough on with the introductions.
"And this is Sarah Carmichael. The Botanist from Stanford I mentioned earlier. She was at the Timbuktu dig site as well."
Huh. So everyone had been at Timbuktu. Years ago, she had read her dad's ramblings during a particularly bad spell. Timbuktu was another Vortice; The Algerian Megalith, to be exact. She remembered her research into Dr Morgan and the news report of the Timbuktu expedition. Hadn't it also mentioned something about The Aether Group? She could almost kick herself for not paying enough attention. As an Emergency Doctor the devil had always been in the details. She hadn't been very good at keeping track of them, thus far. Looking up Dr Morgan had only been a few days before, a week, at most, but it felt like a lifetime had passed since before Dr Morgan had bustled into her life and royally jacked it up. Maybe having your life upended meant that you missed a couple things here and there. Unfortunately, now was not the time to be skimping on adding up the dots.
Sarah smiled and Leda returned the gesture a little weakly and shook her hand. The Botanist was Astrid's opposite in every sense. Shorter than Leda and sporting a severe blonde bob, her lime eyes were kind, nestled into her soft, heart-shaped face.
"It's such an honour to meet Robert Gauling's daughter!" Sarah gushed. Leda's smile twitched and she tried to take her hand back, but, oblivious, Sarah kept shaking it in her surprisingly strong grip. "After all this time and research with Dr Morgan. Aren't you glad that we're finally getting to the main Vortice?"
Leda coughed and tugged her hand back, flexing her crushed fingers.
"I- uh- Sure?" It sounded more like a question and she shot Dr Morgan a desperate look for help but the traitor merely looked on as if nothing was wrong.
Sarah looked a little perturbed but garnered back her pep quickly, smoothing over any confusion with another bright smile. "Don't you-"
Leda was saved, yet again, by the metaphorical bell ringing. The private jet's door slid open, and the steps descended onto the tarmac with a soft whoosh. A waft of cold air drifted over them from the cabin, and Leda sagged in on herself. Thank God. Thank God.
"Saved again, Newbs?" Julian piped up, adjusting his backpack and heading up the plane steps without waiting for anyone else. "What is this now, Oh for two?"
Leda rolled her eyes and jerked her chin towards the plane. "We getting on or what?"
Dr Morgan, who seemed to have a permanent smile on his face ambled along, Sarah and Howard close on his heels. It was just Astrid and herself left and Leda waited for the woman who was entirely over dressed to get on before her.
Astrid's mouth twitched into a wan smile. "After you, mon amie." She gestured to the plane steps and as she did her coat flapped open. Leda spied a holster attached to her waist and what looked suspiciously like a handheld firearm.
What the hell was she doing with a gun? What was The Aether Group expecting to encounter when they got to the island which Leda only half believed actually existed? And why would you need fire power for what was essentially a non-violent archaeological expedition?
Leda schooled her features into a weak smile and shrugged before hurriedly making her way up the steps into the cool cabin. 'Representative' her ass. Since when do representatives pack heat?
There were only six seats on the plane and they all faced one another. Astrid strode past Leda as she paused by the doorway and took the seat closest to the cockpit on the left. Sarah sat opposite her on the right. Howard was buckling himself in beside Astrid with Dr Morgan across from him. Leda stuffed her backpack into the overhead locker and sat next to Dr Morgan in the seat closest to the door and Julian settled himself into the seat opposite her on Howard's left.
The private jet was just as 'private' as it sounded. All plush creams accidented by deep mahoganies. Decanter crystal glasses stowed under everyone's arm rests and- were those jewels along the rim of the ceiling?
"Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen." The pilots voice sounded as Leda clipped herself into the expensive seat that probably cost more than the entire contents of her painfully shabby bedroom back home. "My name is Paul Lockford and I'll be your Captain today. Sitting next to me is Louise Hanquin and she will be our co-pilot. Please note, the fasten your seatbelts sign is on. Once we hit cruising altitude, I'll switch that off and you can feel free to move about the cabin. It should take just under an hour to reach our destination, please prepare for take-off."
Leda looked around as the others secured themselves. Sarah was currently doing a strange repetitive motion with her hands and muttering something under her breath. Astrid was watching her calmly as she crossed her long legs at the ankle. She had kept her trench coat on, and Leda wondered how she hadn't passed out from heatstroke yet. Although if the Amazonian did pass out Leda would be able to help her. Maybe if she showed she wasn't some bumbling idiot everyone would stop looking at her like they weren't quite sure why she was there. Not that she really knew why she was there either.
. . .
Take off was uncomfortable as it usually was and Leda had to chew three pieces of gum just to feel like she could hear anything. She didn't have a book to read so she stared out of the window behind Julian's head. His headphones were in again and his eyes were closed but Leda would put serious money down and bet that he was actually awake and just waiting for her to say something dumb that he could make fun of.
The quiet of the cabin was getting to her nerves, so Leda cleared her throat and asked for confirmation of something Dr Morgan had mentioned earlier.
"So you were all on the Timbuktu expedition together?"
Five pairs of eyes turned towards her, even Julian cranked his eyes open to stare at her with his usual bated breath for her to screw up.
Dr Morgan was nodding before anyone else had fully registered Leda's question over the whir of the engines.
"Yes. It was us and another Aether Group representative. A Mister Dubois, if I remember correctly?"
Astrid grunted and cracked her neck on either side. "Oui."
Leda nodded to no one in particular. Sarah caught her eye as the blonde paused her weird hand movements to swallow a pill with a swig from her silver water cannister.
Julian must have been watching her because he took it upon himself to explain.
"Valium. She's a shitty flier."
Sarah rolled her eyes and flipped him the bird. "Being afraid of crashing while trapped in a metal box that flies through the sky doesn't make me a shitty flier, Julian." Leda couldn't help grinning. Other than the whole hero worship of her dad thing, if Sarah could bat it back to Julian, she would always have a vote from Leda's court. "And anyway, I only took half of one. I don't want a repeat of the Megalith thing."
Julian barked out a laugh, crossing his arms over his broad chest as he sat back. The action popped out his headphones, but he made no effort to put them back in.
"The Timbuktu expedition was to confirm your father's theory on Mercury's retrogradation." Dr Morgan continued, ignoring Julian and Sarah's continued back and forth. The fasten the seatbelt sign flicked off and he wasted no time in unbuckling his seat. He pulled out the bottom of his arm rest and began pouring what looked like whiskey into one of the crystal glasses she had spied earlier.
"Which of course proved entirely correct." He paused to take a sip. "It was a fruitful mission. Had I found you sooner, I would have asked you to come."
Leda huffed a laugh. "I would have said no."
Dr Morgan's white, bushy eyebrows lifted high on his forehead.
"You said no to this trip too, remember?"
Leda's smile dropped and she flopped back against her expensive seat.
"Don't remind me." She muttered, prompting Dr Morgan to chuckle.
Leda rolled her eyes and asked another question that had been bothering her. "What happened to that other guy? Mr Dubois? Why didn't he come on this trip too?"
Leda thought she had said it quietly, but when Astrid answered before Dr Morgan, she realised she probably hadn't spoken quietly enough.
"He was relieved of his position." Astrid said as she fiddled with a brick phone in her lap. Leda frowned at it. Wasn't she super rich? Why was she carrying a phone that looked like it predated a Nokia?
"Relieved of his position?" Leda echoed sceptically. "Because that doesn't sound ominous at all."
"There is nothing ominous about it, Ms Ackerman." Astrid snipped, dark eyebrows lowering. Her frown cast a shadow over her eyes, and they darkened to denim. "Our interests did not line up with his and so he left The Group."
'Group' or secret society, if you were the tin-foil hat wearing type.
Howard was carefully avoiding her eye and when she turned to Dr Morgan, he had gone still in his seat, glass paused on its ascent to his waiting mouth. Clearly there was something more to do with Mr Dubois, but Leda thought she'd drop it for now. She could ask it when they were on The Island or more realistically, when they were back on Bermuda after realising that The Island didn't exist and her dad really was crazy.
Feeling a little attacked, Leda rolled her eyes and gestured to Astrid's lap.
"And did you need firearms in Timbuktu as well?"
Astrid quit fiddling with the brick phone and let it rest in her lap. She looked as unfazed as she had in the sweltering heat, even after just being called out for carrying a gun to what may essentially just be a big dig site filled with dinosaur bones.
"We are dealing with the unknown, Ms Ackerman. Precautions must be taken."
"I thought this was just a research expedition." Leda shot back.
A smile ghosted over Astrid's face but did not touch her eyes as she shrugged her stiff shoulders. "Research can be dangerous."
. . .
The sky outside had grown dark during their journey and rain had been pelting the small window behind Julian's head for a while. Leda had been staring at it for a few minutes, lost in her thoughts. The voice of the pilot coming from above her head ripped her from her daydreams with a start.
"Hello folks, this is your Captain speaking. We're about twenty minutes away from our destination and will be beginning decent shortly. Got a bit of wind and rain coming up to our left but our flight path takes us around most of it. Normal turbulence is expected so I'll pop that fasten seatbelt sign on for you just in case things get a bit bumpy. As a precaution, if you haven't already, please do have a read of the safety manual and remember, life jackets are under your seats."
The PA system clicked off and almost instantly the plane rattled a little bit. Dr Morgan and Astrid re-clipped their seatbelts as the fasten seatbelts signed loomed red over their heads. Leda clicked her tongue. Nothing to worry about her ass.
She rifled through her chairs side pocket to pull out the safety leaflet as the Captain suggested. Two basic animations of an adult woman and child greeted her. In one picture the woman was putting on the child's lifejacket and didn't have one on herself. There was a big X above this picture. In the second she had already attached her lifejacket and was helping attach her child's. This had a big green tick and she rolled her eyes. She knew there was a good reason for the silly pictures, but she couldn't help but think of course the private airline's thesis was to save yourself first.
"And you're sure this thing is safe?" Leda muttered as the plane shook again. She threw an accusatory glare at Dr Morgan who, despite the retched conditions, seemed to be well within his perpetually ever-present good mood.
Dr Morgan returned her glare with a calm smile. He had set aside his glass and his hands now rested comfortably in his linen trousered lap. To Leda, he looked like a perfect picture of peace and therefore entirely out of place in the shaking plane.
"It's only a little storm," he remarked good naturedly, gesturing to Julian's window as if to illustrate just how much she was overreacting. The sky outside had clouded to the point of near black and it was difficult to tell what was cloud and what was roiling sea below. An image of the plane falling into the sea zipped through her mind inconveniently. What was worse, dying by fire or drowning? Or both? Could planes still explode in water?
"A little bit of wind and rain won't hurt you." Dr Morgan remarked.
Leda gaped at him.
"'Little'?"
On one hand, Leda knew she was probably being a bit silly. She had flown before. She knew that turbulence and planes went hand in hand. But usually she was on a larger craft and she felt infinitely safer surrounded by two hundred other passengers than she did in the six-windowed, six-seater private jet she was currently trapped within.
The plane gave another lurch and she squeezed her fingers so hard around the arm rests that one of her distal phalanges popped painfully.
Sarah's blonde head jerking caught her attention. She was fast asleep; the Valium having done its job a little too well. Leda envied her unbothered rest.
"Though I would agree with you, Professor," Howard piped up, lacing his fingers together under his chin. "It's been a lot more than 'a bit' of rain. Hard to say, of course, without the use of a rain gauge but still easy to calculate."
Leda's mouth hung open as he proceeded to confidently lay down some mental maths that had her head spinning.
"In this heavy rain it would take around three minutes to fill a one-hundred-and-fifty-millimetre gauge, with a funnel area of seventy-eight point five five. If you divided fifty by the funnel area and then multiplied that number by ten, you would get six point three six five millimetres of rain. Considering the fact that it's been raining for about twenty minutes or so, that's," here he paused and looked at a point just beyond Leda's head as he did the calculations. "Forty-four point five five five millimetres of rain. Which in conversion to inches is-"
"A lot of fucking rain, you big nerd." Julian interrupted with a laugh. He had twisted his head to look at Howard as he spoke and was grinning, his snaggle tooth catching his full bottom lip. But he hadn't said it cruelly, and Leda spied some admiration to his blue gaze as he high fived Howard.
"Well- yes." Howard used his high-five hand to push his square glasses up his Roman nose. "That is essentially what I was going to say but-"
"Howard," Leda interrupted. She was still trying to wrap her head around what he had said. "You're fucking awesome. You sure you're just a research assistant?"
Red bloomed across Howard's face and he smiled at Leda in thanks. She saw Dr Morgan nodding and could even spy Astrid on the edges of her vision, head turned to Howard.
"It was nothing really. I-"
The plane lurched violently, cutting Howard off and slamming everyone to the side before it began to fall. Leda felt her legs rise and fall as the plane tipped down and then angled back up. She gasped, forcing her body backwards into her chair, stomach twisting. Thunder clapped loudly and Leda spied lightning in the distance in the window behind Howard's head.
Her wide eyes looked frantically around the cabin, assessing and panicking at the same time. The Professor's legs and arms were slack and a gash above his eye was slowly weeping blood. He must have hit his head. There wasn't enough time to wonder on what. She just had to get him conscious.
"Dr Morgan?" She shook his arm roughly. "Dr Morgan!"
He remained motionless and her breath hitched in her chest. She heard shouts from the cockpit and the plane made a sudden spin, curtailing right before levelling out. Dr Morgan's arm smacked against the wood of his armrest as it flopped about. The sound made Leda wince. He would feel that later. If there even was a later.
Sarah mumbled something, beginning to rouse from her Valium slumber. Julian's head hung forward but was moving sluggishly from side to side. He was awake but only just. Leda looked to Howard, who looked pale beneath his tan but was awake an unharmed. He was gripping his armrests so tightly that she worried he might snap a phalanx.
She called to him sharply. "Howard!"
He blinked slowly but managed to nod at her. Leda tried to smile past her rising panic. This was good. He was alright. Just in shock, most likely.
She opened her mouth to ask him if he was alright, but Astrid hissed: "Quiet!" from her seat. And Leda clammed up.
To her confusion, Astrid seemed completely fine. Not a hair out of place or panic on her face. Her calmness was maddening at a time where Leda, who had been trained for all manner of emergency situations, was herself starting to feel the beginnings of fear tighten her stomach and quicken her breath.
In the near crash, the cockpit door had opened slightly, and Astrid leaned her body forward, straining to hear the voices of the pilots over the hum of the engines and the storm outside. If Leda strained, she could hear the frantic clicking of buttons and the swearing of the two pilots.
"…Down-…Emergen-…Code seven five zero-ze…land-…land-"
Astrid huffed and pulled out the brick phone. She clicked a button and held it to her ear, beginning to bark rapid French into the mouthpiece.
Sarah slurred herself awake and it distracted Leda from watching Astrid grow irritated as she spoke.
Sarah blinked, mouth working around half-formed words. "Wha-s- is- wha-"
Leda no longer envied her unconcerned state. She was barely dealing with the, frankly, almost certainty of immediate death while sober, she couldn't imagine dealing with it stuck in between reality and sleep by the effects of Valium.
Dr Morgan groaned beside her and part of her panic subsided as he blinked awake.
"Dr Morgan can you hear me?" He looked at her groggily and managed a nod.
"Good. Good." She offered him a strained smile and tried to slow her breathing. "Can you tell me what your middle name is?"
She watched as he rolled his tongue in his mouth before replying. When he spoke she could see red on his teeth. He'd probably cut his gum when his head slammed into the backrest.
"It-it is-" Dr Morgan paused and blinked owlishly at her. Oh boy. That wasn't good. "It is Eli-"
The oxygen masks suddenly descending cut him off and in her shock, Leda screamed.
Even though it was for a totally legitimate reason, she felt ridiculous a moment later. The plane had settled, it wasn't shaking anymore. Even the thunder that had boomed above them seemed to quiet. Calm settled over the cabin and Leda's breath steadied with it. She even managed an embarrassed chuckle at Julian who took time out of his concussion to roll his eyes at her overreaction.
"I'm sorry," Leda warbled, unnerved. "I-sorry- I didn't mean- I'm sorry. Is everyone ok?"
Any responses were swallowed by two things happening at once.
First, a flash of lightening lit up the window behind Julian's head, momentarily bathing everyone in its silvery shine. Then the lights in the plane flickered off plunging everyone into darkness before the emergency floor lights kicked in.
"Everything is alright." Julian stated firmly. The orangey emergency lights shadowed his serious face with a odd glow. "It's probably just heavy turbulence. We'll-"
Be alright, is what she assumed he had been going for. But again, like before, her comfort was cut short by the pilot whose voice crackled out from the plane's speakers.
"This is your Captain speaking. All passengers are to exact the position. Brace for Impact."
A curse was heard though the ajar door as the plane seemed to jolt forward and down. The air began to feel thin. Leda's body felt weightless and she scrambled to attach her oxygen mask onto her head. Her hands were shaking but she managed to get it secured. After, she turned to help Dr Morgan's with his, but he had less control over his body and him trying to help her meant that their hands got tangled together with the mask's strings. Sarah began to scream and the sound mingled with the engines whirr and the rush of air as their plane fell until it all blended into one horrible white noise.
She was going to die. That was for certain. But she was oddly calm. She wasn't crying or screaming like Sarah or frantically shouting into a phone like Astrid. She didn't even know what the best thing to think about was.
What was best for a last thought? Her parents? Her work? That guy in the coffee shop who she had been meaning to ask out? Everything was too important and not important enough to dwell on. Each problem required hours of thinking over, not seconds before she drowned. There just wasn't enough time.
So as they fell Leda decided to think of nothing but the warm, calloused hand of the Professor, helping her attach his mask and the dazed blue of his eyes as he tried to say something to her, under his mask.
The Captain's voice returned, and Leda's mind settled peacefully, despite the chaos around her.
"Brace! Brace! Brace!"
Hello!
I feel like every Author's Note I write starts with 'I'm sorry' but I am sorry every time. If you haven't already read my profile, I'm a MA student and I've had a lot of assignments due that make editing this hard, hence the long times between chapters. After September my assignments slow down till next year so I should be able to update more regularly from then.
As always, I can't seem to help myself and this is another huge chapter that I'm not happy with at all. There are some tense issues as usual but, like last time, I'm so tired of reading over it aha. As you can also probably tell as well, action is not a strong suit of mine so please bear with me aha You'll be pleased that we're finally getting to The Island as promised and soon we'll be where we need to be.
I hope you enjoyed this absolutely boring chapter lol and I'm sorry you had to wait so long to get it. Thank you so much for all the favourites and reviews and follows! I'm constantly blown away every by how much you guys like this and I'm so happy we're on this journey together!
Have a lovely week,
Aobh x