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Chapter 10
Well, he tried to get to a seat, as did most people, but he had a numb sensation the moment he turned to walk up the cargo ramp into the plane. Everything was pure brilliant white. The only items that took away from the pure white vision on front of him were the other people already on the plane.
With each leaden step into the bowels of the plane, his sense of dread increased, until in a space of time that seemed like minutes, but was probably in reality little more than a couple of seconds, he came to a complete halt.
His mind was cast back to that room he had spent so much time in over five years ago, and that until moments ago, seemed like another lifetime. Now, as then, there was no perception of size or depth amongst the whiteness. Although it was almost blindingly bright, there were no obvious light sources, and no shadows of any sort to give a depth to the space he was in. Whatever had happened then was starting again and as he remembered back, he felt the world around him start to disappear.
He was however, jolted from this with a shove from one of his “controllers” as he suddenly thought of them.
“Keep Moving, Over to that seat there.” The controller said, pointing to what at first look appeared to be nothing, but some more whiteness, but he felt sure he could vaguely make out the rough shape of a seat.
He looked around and the looks of distress, fear and panic on the other passenger’s faces, and in their eyes, told him that most of them, if not all of them had been in a place like this before. In a place like he’d been before.
He found his seat, and felt his way into it. Even close up it was difficult to get a reasonable view of the seat below him, without it blurring into the general whiteness. From his seat he looked around, and found that from where he sat he could see other people, but it appeared that the seats weren’t arranged in a regular pattern, as would normally be the case, but if they were arranged at all, they were arranged so that no one was really sat near to anyone else, or sat in a way that they were not facing anyone else.
He could see other passengers looking around too, but they all seemed unwilling to make eye contact with him, and after a brief period, they stopped looking around, and just stared into the whiteness, alone with their thoughts. He thought to himself, that perhaps the seats had been set up in such a way as to discourage eye contact and interaction, and therefore to leave everyone with their own thoughts, alone in the whiteness.
The rear door of the plane slowly raised until it closed snugly into the gap that was there for it. Once shut he felt the loudest silence he had ever come across in his life. His initial though was that he’d gone deaf, and a brief panic took over him. He breathed out and thought he could vaguely here his own breathing, and he tilted his head to see if he could pick up any sounds from inside the plane. However there were no sounds coming from anywhere, so he clapped just to make sure he hadn’t gone deaf. The sound that he heard was reassuring, though his peripheral vision had picked up that a couple of fellow passengers flinched at the sound, and a couple of his controllers looked in his direction, though not with their normal air of composure.
He smiled to himself as he realised how much like a gunshot his clap might have sounded to those of nervous disposition, especially in sure a quiet environment, and with armed controllers walking around.
He felt the motion of the plane and took a couple of seconds to realise that they were actually moving. Whatever had been used to soundproof the interior of this plane was doing a sterling job. The motion had took him by surprise because there had been no indication that the engines had even started. He strained to see if he could hear the engines, but although he thought that he could, it could just be his sub-conscious knowledge of what he should be hearing playing tricks on him. He knew how loud these planes sounded from the outside, as he’d heard this one coming in from inside the terminal, and wondered how much it cost to get this quality of soundproofing.
It struck him just how much money must have been involved in this whole operation. He quickly scanned the cabin and from that and his recollection of the terminal there appeared to be between thirty and forty people that were, like himself, captives. The planning to get all these people, who didn’t obviously know each other on two flights on the same day at the same time was astronomically complex. He wondered how much his life may have been manipulated in recent months to get him here today. Then there was the hired help, of which in total there must have been at least double the amount of captives. With this plane, the satellite feed into the terminal at the airport, and what had happened those 5 years ago, this was an operation that wasn’t going to be cheap. In fact he didn’t think there could be that many individuals who could shell out for a project like this.
His thoughts were interrupted by a break in the silence.
“Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Let me welcome you aboard this special charter flight. For the most part of this trip we shall be cruising at approximately 100 feet above sea level, and shall be travelling at approximately 450 knots. The expected flight time this afternoon is 10 hours. Your gracious hosts will be round later with meals and refreshments to help the journey go smoothly. If you have any special dietary requirements, please don’t worry, as your hosts are fully aware of these. Unfortunately there is no in flight movie, due to the refitting of the cabin area, but please feel free to sleep during the journey.”
Five thousand miles gave no real indication of where they were headed. With being so near to the north pole that put them within range of anywhere in the northern hemisphere. Eastern America and Western Europe were probably out of the equation, unless the captain was lying, apart from that the only certainty was that he wouldn’t be getting off this plane in Australia.
It took little time for the bright lights to send shooting pains to his brain. He closed his eyes, but even then there wasn’t really any respite. He looked up and glanced around to see what the controllers were doing about the light, and saw that they were all wearing sunglasses. They had come prepared for this. It suddenly dawned on him that he had brought his sunglasses with him when he had left the hotel that morning, and although it felt like a different life time, he was fairly sure that he hadn’t lost or abandoned them anywhere else.
He felt around in the pockets of his jacket and sure enough, he found them in the left inside pocket. He took out the Ray Ban wrap rounds, and put them on, and felt the relief almost immediately. The light was dimmed to an acceptable level, and his eyes began to relax from the sensory overload that he had been feeling.
The throbbing in his head started to decrease and he strained to look around to see where the two women were in relation to himself, and although he nearly tied himself in knots turning to try and see them, he could not see any sign of them. However the vastness of the inside of the plane and the positioning of the chairs were almost certainly to blame for that. As he was straightening himself out, he caught a glance of the head controller. It looked like he was looking at him, watching over him, but with him wearing sunglasses as well it was difficult to tell exactly where he was looking.
Once back in a comfortable position he closed his eyes and felt himself relax all the way through his body. Although he had been asleep a couple of times during the day, he had never actually felt relaxed, and yet here he was on the strangest plane journey of his life, and there had been many, and yet he felt at ease with everything.
His mind wandered from thoughts of Claire, his parents, his school life, to his work, and how he became freelance and a specialist in computer security systems. Everything that went through his mind was memories of things that were good, and times when he was happy. The thoughts were a stark contrast to those that had clouded his consciousness during the day, and with what he felt sure would be a silly contented smile on his face, he drifted off to sleep yet again.