Wormhole Bigot – Part 2

Adrian Levet

Darlington, Western Australia

Australia

 

Continued from this morning …

His face went pale. He hadn’t been flying for very long, but he behaved in a similar way when they went past a hurricane a year or so ago. John knew it would shake him. Perhaps it would make him shut his patronizing gob.

‘I think we should turn back, John! I know your experienced and all, but that doesn’t look safe to me …’

‘Oh what’s wrong Bill? You a scaredy cat?’ He leveled the controls and kept on course. He tried the radio to warn control of the storm, so at least they were aware if anything went wrong. ‘Control, do you copy? We have a storm in front, looks like a doozy, over.’

John was received with nothing but static.

‘Control, do you copy? Over.’

Still nothing.

‘Looks like the storm is interfering with our signal. We’re on our own Bill. Help me level her out would you?’ Bill was unusually quiet, so it must have done the trick. John thanked the storm for that one.

They both took the reins, like a hesitant horse being guided to the starting gate. John started to feel physically ill, but he wasn’t sure whether it was just his lingering hangover from the night before. A Big Kahuna day, he thought to himself. It could be that he was actually nervous, but it was hard to tell. It looked like one hell of a storm, John was sure of that. As they veered closer to it, the plane started to shake a little, and the sounds of the incoming storm started to really effect the aircraft. Soon after, tiny droplets appeared on the windscreen, then bigger ones, then it started pouring with rain.

‘Help me stabilize, Bill, this is going to get bumpy.’

He flicked a few switches on the controls, Bill sitting in the side seat, as rigid as a board. Pretty soon the storm hit in full force. The plane started being uncontrollably blown from side to side, and the turbulence was becoming hard to handle. It was only now that John realized the gravity of the situation, the aircraft was in danger of losing altitude and the whole thing could tumble into the middle of the ocean. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning hit the plane, and everything in view lit up like a Christmas tree.

‘Don’t touch the controls, Bill!’

They both leant backwards, whilst the controls just floundered on their own, the equipment on the dashboard going haywire. John grasped the controls back again after a short time, and tried to stabilize the aircraft, but it was no use. The compass was still moving faster and faster around, John could see their bearing was completely gone now. The aircraft was shuddering with turbulence, but seemed to be easing off a little.

Strangely and suddenly, they emerged out of the storm cloud, the last of the rain blanketed itself onto them, and left them alone, the silence and low hum of the engine the only noise that was left. Bill sat out of his seat and looked back towards where they came from.

‘It’s … gone. Just gone. Clouds don’t just disappear like that …’

His face was pale, and beads of sweat were lining his eyes. John could indeed see that the cloud behind had completely dissipated. It was a clear sky in front, and a clear sky behind. Did they imagine the entire thing? There were still remnants of the rain on the windscreen. In all John’s years of flying a storm had never just “vanished”. ‘I guess … I guess we just keep going. We’re lucky to be alive, Bill. That was in dire danger of going pear-shaped’

He tapped the compass and it seemed to be working, heading south-west like they were supposed to. They looked over the horizon to see the sprawling seaside of Miami Beach. They weren’t meant to reach the coast this early. John looked down at his watch, and saw that they had only been flying for about two hours. impossible timing!

‘Look, John, It’s Miami! I thought we were pretty far out? How did we get here so fast?’

John didn’t answer. He was too busy looking at the coastline. Something seemed different about it; there were a multitude of tall skyscrapers, and many peculiarly shaped buildings. They looked for the airport, but it wasn’t where it usually was. This wasn’t the same Miami he had been to, everything about it was different. John started to panic. Where was he going to land the plane?

‘John! What do we do! The airport isn’t there. It’s just … buildings everywhere …’

Suddenly, their electrics failed. There was a flash of light that blinked out from a tall building in the centre of the city, and the aircraft just lulled in the air like a flailing fish.

‘Jesus! Hold on Bill!’

They grabbed onto their sides and braced for emergency impact. The plane nose-dived downwards, plummeting towards the earth. They had reached maximum velocity and John thought it would be the end, a view of alien looking buildings and streets teeming with people, but suddenly, a massive blue netting; made from some kind of laser technology caught the whole plane and as they tangled into it, the netting wrapped around them. The force of hitting the net had taken its toll on Bill, he had hit his head on the dash controls, and John saw a line of blood flow down his forehead. He lay back, limp in his chair. John undid his belt and stood to look out the window, balancing himself on the side of the dash. He gasped in amazement. Before his eyes lay a futuristic Miami, skyscrapers as far as the eye could see, with massive pinned advertisements, digitized down entire sides of the concrete behemoths. Into his vision appeared a few planes, which seemed to hover magically in the air. They looked alien, sharp angled in design, with bright reflective lights. Suddenly a burst of red light shot through his cockpit and moved from top to bottom. John winced as it moved over him, but it didn’t seem to hurt. There was a flash, and John lost consciousness.

To be continued …

Bio: Adrian tells us this zany piece is one he’s been working on for a while, with the strange concept of mixing a bigot into the future. Please feel free to critique. Adrian decided to split it into sections although the end isn’t written yet.